Fergus Bell

Fergus Bell is the founder & CEO at Fathm, an independent news lab, agency and consultancy supporting clients from across the globe. His work focuses on improving newsroom processes and efficiency, making use of emerging technologies, generating new revenue, tackling mis and disinformation and creating impactful and increasingly essential reporting initiatives around the climate crisis. He is an experienced journalist, editor, manager and leading expert in verification, fact-checking, newsroom innovation and collaborative journalism projects. He spent eight years as a journalist and producer at the Associated Press, where he became their first International Social Media and UGC Editor. Since 2015 Fergus has been advising broadcasters, publishers and start-ups around the world on editorial challenges, misinformation, newsroom transformation and innovation. He is the co-founder of the Online Journalism Award-winning “Pop-Up Newsroom”, a framework for collaborative journalism projects that has run initiatives in the US, UK, India, Sweden, Indonesia and Mexico. Fergus is a mentor for the UK’s John Schofield Trust and he joined the Online News Association’s Board of Directors in 2020.