Hot Shots 2023: Georgina Lee

It has been a “blockbuster” year for Georgina Lee, says Channel 4 News head of digital Mike Deri Smith. Lee runs, and is the sole producer on, Channel 4 News FactCheck, the support site that holds MPs’ claims to account in a bid to curb the spread of misinformation.

C4 has been running FactCheck since 2005 but since she joined in 2017, Lee has transformed it into a multimedia broadcast brand with explainer videos that have amassed millions of views across social platforms, tackling subjects from domestic violence against pregnant women to the government’s asylum backlog.

Lee, a former HM Treasury policy adviser, kicked o 2023 with the revelation that the NHS is now 10 times worse than in 2011 on four key measures, with a video attracting almost 200,000 views on Twitter and informing a Channel 4 News TV special on the NHS.

Lee’s analysis also delivered the shock statistic that the number of women in Northern Ireland waiting longer than the official target for breast cancer treatment is 50 times higher than 12 years ago.

FactCheck has also proved invaluable in cutting through the noise around Russia’s war with Ukraine. Lee’s beginner’s guide to the conflict had almost 10 million views on Facebook within days of the invasion, while the FactCheck analysis of Vladimir Putin’s tactics in previous wars has been watched 3 million times.

A one-minute explainer on abortion ruling Roe v Wade, meanwhile, was a hit on TikTok, with more than 4 million views within hours of the historic Supreme Court decision.

Smith says it is testament to the esteem in which Lee’s journalism is held that in January she was invited to give evidence to the DCMS Committee session on Online Harms and Disinformation.