In a recent report by the Brookings Institution, UCSB CS Prof. William Wang's research on automated fake news detection was discussed. The century-old American think tank discussed the challenges that fake news poses to journalism, and surveyed recent approaches to combat fake news and disinformation. In particular, Darrell West, the Vice President of Brookings Institution, quoted:

"...computer scientist William Yang Wang, relying upon PolitiFact.com, created a public database of 12,836 statements labeled for accuracy and developed an algorithm that compared “surface-level linguistic patterns” from false assertions to wording contained in digital news stories. This allowed him to integrate text and analysis, and identify stories that rely on false information. His conclusion is that “when combining meta-data with text, significant improvements can be achieved for fine-grained fake news detection.”"

Full report on combating fake news and disinformation by the Brookings Institution: https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-to-combat-fake-news-and-disinformation/