How to Spot False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and/or Satirical “News” Sources
Adapted by Kate Thomas from https://docs.google.com/document/d/10eA5-mCZLSS4MQY5QGb5ewC3VAL6pLkT53V_81ZyitM/preview and
Fact check! Sam Wineburg, a professor of education and history at Stanford, said a solution is for all readers to read like fact checkers. But how do fact checkers do their job?
- Isolate the claim
- Look for the primary source: the actual study, the eye-witness, the actual data/number
- Does the primary source prove the claim being made?
- Does the “news” present the limitations of the data, e.g., only 100 people surveyed, self-reported data, only one witness but there are others.
- Read news sites cite their sources and the sources can be verified.
If you don’t have time to do your own fact-checking, these are some short-cuts (but for essays, projects, publications you must have the primary sources):
- Avoid websites that end in “lo” ex: Newslo. These sites take pieces of accurate information and then packaging that information with other false or misleading “facts” (sometimes for the purposes of satire or comedy).
- Avoid websites that end in “.com.co” as they are fake versions of real news sources.
- Established news organizations use their own domains. For example, com is a legitimate news source, but abcnews.com.co is not, despite its similar appearance.
- Some news organizations allow bloggers to post under the banner of particular news brands, but these posts do not go through the same fact-verification process as the news reports (e.g., BuzzFeed Community Posts, Kinja blogs, Forbes blogs, or the comment sections are not fact checked).
- Who’s the author?
- Check the “About Us” tab on websites or look up the website on Snopes or Wikipedia
- Google the name; is s/he a reporter with a resume you can check?
- Lack of author attribution may, but not always, signify that the news story is suspect and requires verification.
- Bad web design and use of ALL CAPS can also be a sign that the source you’re looking at should be verified and/or read in conjunction with other sources.
- Watch out if known/reputable news sites are not also reporting on the story.
- Sometimes lack of coverage is the result of corporate media bias and other factors, but there should typically be more than one source reporting on a topic or event.
- If the story makes you really angry or you are in perfect agreement, it’s probably a good idea to keep reading about the topic via a variety of sources.
- Real news presents facts; facts will be the same across different news sources, though they may have different headlines that emphasize a particular fact over others.
- Real news presents at least two perspectives, if not more, if the story is about perceptions.
- Opinion pieces, blogs, etc. present only one side and are opinions (not facts).
- In order to generate shares and ad revenue from clicks, fake news tries to be outrageous, provoke anger, or perfect agreement.
- If the website encourages you to harass or DOX people, it’s not real news.
For more tips on analyzing the credibility and reliability of sources, please check out these sites:
- “We were guaranteed a free press, We were not guaranteed a neutral or a true” See http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2016/11/26/truth-truthiness-triangulation-and-the-librarian-way-a-news-literacy-toolkit-for-a-post-truth-world/
- Digital Media Literacy http://drc.centerfornewsliteracy.org/
- Breaking News http://drc.centerfornewsliteracy.org/resource/npr-s-breaking-news-consumers-handbooks-0
- Viral Videos http://drc.centerfornewsliteracy.org/content/deconstructing-viral-video-skydiving-without-parachute
