10 Ways to Spot a Fake News Article - EasyBib Blog For many of us, 2016 is going down as a year to forget. Election upsets, Zika, the Syrian crisis, and unfortunately tons of fake news about all of the above and everything in between. Denzel Washington was recently quoted as saying, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.” So what should you do? You want to be informed, but a good deal of the information out there is incorrect or biased. 1. Links and citations allow us to easily access, read, and explore more about the information found in the article. Many big name news sites, such as CNN, do not include links or citations, but other sites do. 2. An article without an author’s name is another red flag. 3. Do a Google search on the author’s name to find their occupation and locate other articles that the author has composed. 4. On the top or bottom of most websites, you should see a section titled “About Us.” 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. How can you prevent the spread of fake news?
Good Tools for Teaching Students How to Evaluate Web Content Credibility Source: Butler University Library, adapted from Meriam Library at CSU, Chico One of my favorite lessons to teach is about evaluating the credibility of web sites and other digital content. I often start by showing the classic “Can't Lie On The Internet” video from AllState, which gets a laugh and helps to get students in the right mind set. Next, we check out the classic “DHMO” site and talk about what we see there. Dihydrogen Monoxide sounds pretty scary, but is this site legitimate? That's when I bring up Kathy Schrock's 5 W's PDF and use it as a kick off point to discuss the idea of using criteria for evaluation, not just gut reactions. Another tool I came across recently that I like is this 60 Second Guide for evaluating web resources. There are countless resources on the web for evaluating content credibility, and it is easy to get a bit overwhelmed. The Challenges of Video and Social Media Credibility Another Great Resource: Snopes.com
Fact-Checking Won’t Save Us From Fake News Fake news. We’ve used this phrase so many times in the past two months that it’s almost lost meaning — partly because it can mean so many different things. Depending on who you talk to, “fake news” may refer to satirical news, hoaxes, news that’s clumsily framed or outright wrong, propaganda, lies destined for viral clicks and advertising dollars, politically motivated half-truths, and more. Whatever definition you pick, fake news is worrying media folks. As such, news about fake news has boomed. Fact-checking is key to journalism — it’s a skill and a service that’s instrumental in providing the information to the public. Don’t get me wrong — fact-checking is a start, and some of it may even help. Fake news purveyors have even co-opted the term “fake news.” The stakes are high: Fake news has consequences. Facebook and Google keep giving users more of what they want to see through proprietary algorithms. Despite the consequences, some readers don’t seem to care.
School Libraries Fight Fake News Fake news has been all over the real news lately. From Mark Zuckerburg to Pizzagate, fake news is a huge problem, and it’s not going away on its own. According to a recent study from Stanford University, approximately 80 percent of students struggled to evaluate the credibility of an online resource. This is a little disheartening, since this is a huge part of what we teach as school librarians, and it appears we’ve not been very effective. There really isn’t a magic formula or checklist that replaces the critical thinking needed to determine if information is credible. Based on the recent surge of fake news and the results of the Stanford study, we decided to overhaul our website evaluation lessons by doing the following: Changing website evaluation to resource evaluation. Fake news has always been around, but now it feels more threatening. Completed worksheet from the Stanford study Author: Mica Johnson I’m a school librarian at Farragut Middle. Like this: Like Loading...
How to Spot Fake News - FactCheck.org Fake news is nothing new. But bogus stories can reach more people more quickly via social media than what good old-fashioned viral emails could accomplish in years past. Concern about the phenomenon led Facebook and Google to announce that they’ll crack down on fake news sites, restricting their ability to garner ad revenue. Not all of the misinformation being passed along online is complete fiction, though some of it is. A lot of these viral claims aren’t “news” at all, but fiction, satire and efforts to fool readers into thinking they’re for real. We’ve long encouraged readers to be skeptical of viral claims, and make good use of the delete key when a chain email hits their inboxes. In 2008, we tried to get readers to rid their inboxes of this kind of garbage. Those all still hold true, but fake stories — as in, completely made-up “news” — has grown more sophisticated, often presented on a site designed to look (sort of) like a legitimate news organization. Consider the source.
Can You Tell Fake News From Real? Study Finds Students Have 'Dismaying' Inability Stanford researchers assessed students from middle school to college and found they struggled to distinguish ads from articles, neutral sources from biased ones and fake accounts from real ones. Gary Waters/Ikon Images/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Gary Waters/Ikon Images/Getty Images Stanford researchers assessed students from middle school to college and found they struggled to distinguish ads from articles, neutral sources from biased ones and fake accounts from real ones. If the children are the future, the future might be very ill-informed. That's one implication of a new study from Stanford researchers that evaluated students' ability to assess information sources and described the results as "dismaying," "bleak" and "[a] threat to democracy." As content creators and social media platforms grapple with the fake news crisis, the study highlights the other side of the equation: What it looks like when readers are duped. "The photograph had no attribution.
How To Recognize A Fake News Story | HuffPost How To Spot Fake News Critical thinking is a key skill in media and information literacy, and the mission of libraries is to educate and advocate its importance. Discussions about fake news has led to a new focus on media literacy more broadly, and the role of libraries and other education institutions in providing this. When Oxford Dictionaries announced post-truth was Word of the Year 2016, we as librarians realise action is needed to educate and advocate for critical thinking – a crucial skill when navigating the information society. IFLA has made this infographic with eight simple steps (based on FactCheck.org’s 2016 article How to Spot Fake News) to discover the verifiability of a given news-piece in front of you. Download, print, translate, and share – at home, at your library, in your local community, and on social media networks. The more we crowdsource our wisdom, the wiser the world becomes. Download the infographic Translations
How To Tell Fake News From Real News In 'Post-Truth' Era Behind the fake news crisis lies what's perhaps a larger problem: Many Americans doubt what governments or authorities tell them, and also dismiss real news from traditional sources. But we've got tips to sharpen our skepticism. Turnbull/Getty Images/Ikon Images hide caption toggle caption Turnbull/Getty Images/Ikon Images Behind the fake news crisis lies what's perhaps a larger problem: Many Americans doubt what governments or authorities tell them, and also dismiss real news from traditional sources. Are we really in a post-truth era? The presidential campaign was filled with falsehoods. But let's properly define the problem. Business, government, churches and the media have fallen in public esteem. Hazardous as the post-trust era may be, it shouldn't cause despair. What we all need, as citizens, is to develop more skill in applying our skepticism. Propagandists obviously have fun (and profit from) trying to con us, the public. So here's a finder's guide for facts: