Presented by the Society of Professional Journalists New England: Nicole Poitras talks with David Mikkelson, founder and CEO of Snopes, about the damage misinformation and fake news has done to the country, and the importance of fighting it. Recorded Feb. 11, 2021.

Watch the conversation with Mikkelson

David Mikkelson founded Snopes in 1994 as a creative outgrowth of his wide-ranging interests in a variety of subjects, particularly folklore, and his professional expertise in the computer industry. Handling everything from researching and writing articles about urban legends to managing the site’s technical infrastructure, David saw Snopes.com – which antedated the development of automated search engines – quickly become the go-to place for Internet users to query the veracity of anything questionable they encountered online. In addition to his decades of experience researching and writing about the facts behind a multitude of topics, David’s educational background includes a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Texas (San Antonio) and about a zillion course hours of post-graduate classes at California State University, Northridge that were taken with no particular degree in mind. His previous employment encompassed stints with the News-Chronicle (newspaper), Teledyne Electronics, the U.S. Postal Service, JPL, Digital Equipment Corporation, Rocketdyne, and Health Net (HMO). In his ever-dwindling moments of free time away from Snopes.com, David can be spotted at board gaming events and conventions.