Southwestern Mass Communication Journal A journal of the Southwest Education Council for Journalism & Mass Communication ISSN 0891-9186 (Print); ISSN 2641-6743 (Online) | Vol. 38, No. 2 Influences of Media Routines on Fact-Checking: An Exploratory Study of Sources in PolitiFact Fact-Checks Mohammad Yousuf & Arif Md Tareque Habib University of New Mexico This exploratory study examined PolitiFact fact-checks (N=18,446) published between 2008 and 2020 to understand the extent to which the largest political fact-checking network in the United States utilizes traditional media routines in finding check-worthy claims and gathering information to verify claims. An automated content analysis revealed that PolitiFact relies more on routine channels of news production to find check-worthy claims than non-routine channels. The results also show that non-elite sources account for a negligible portion of PolitiFact sources, but the organization uses more non-traditional channels to find sources. Keywords: fact-checking, journalism, routine, source, PolitiFact ources in news stories are known as framers, agenda setters, and primary definers of events who help journalists provide balanced narratives of political events (Carlson, 2009; Kleemans et al., 2017; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). Fact-checking, an emerging and yet controversial digital form of journalism that adjudicates the veracity of political statements, made the role of sources more prominent and elevated their status to definers of truth from definers of events (Graves, 2016; Uscinski & Butler, 2013). Fact-checking platforms and news organizations work in the same information landscape, rely on similar resource niches for survival, and face similar economic challenges (Brandtzaeg et al., 2018; Graves, 2017; Lowrey, 2017). Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that fact-checkers utilize traditional media routines in the process of finding S