Mis-information and Dis-information
Resources To Help You Spot False Information Or Biases
- AllSides"AllSides strengthens our democratic society with balanced news, diverse perspectives, and real conversation." This site displays "the day’s top news stories from the Left, Center and Right of the political spectrum — side-by-side so you can see the full picture."
- Factcheck.org"We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding."
- Media BiasA resource that identifies the biases of over 950 news media sources: Left News; Left-Center News; Center News; Right-Center News; Right News; Breaking News; Pro-science; Conspiracy-Pseudoscience; Satire/Fake News.
- PolitiFactPolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics. PolitiFact is run by editors and reporters from the Tampa Bay Times, an independent newspaper in Florida, as is PunditFact, a site devoted to fact-checking pundits. The PolitiFact state sites are run by news organizations that have partnered with the Times. The state sites and PunditFact follow the same principles as the national site. This site provides more variability into the "verdict" of statements made by politicians, such as half-true, compromise, mostly false, promise broken or kept, pants on fire, mostly true, and true.
- Snopes.comOne of the more prominent Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation. The snopes.com website was founded by David Mikkelson, who lives and works in the Los Angeles area. What he began in 1995 as an expression of his interest in researching urban legends has since grown into what is widely regarded by folklorists, journalists, and laypersons alike as one of the World Wide Web's essential resources. Snopes.com is routinely included in annual "Best of the Web" lists and has been the recipient of two Webby awards. Each item investigated includes the claim and verdict at the beginning (false, unproven, true) as well as the origin of the claim.
- Washington Post Fact CheckerIn an award-winning journalism career spanning more than three decades, Glenn Kessler has covered foreign policy, economic policy, the White House, Congress, politics, airline safety and Wall Street. He was The Washington Post’s chief State Department reporter for nine years, traveling around the world with three different Secretaries of State. Before that, he covered tax and budget policy for The Washington Post and also served as the newspaper’s national business editor. This site uses Pinocchio symbols to indicate levels of false information.
News Media Biases Graph
This graph helps visualize how news media can be biased. This site also includes an interactive map that covers hundreds of news sources and is searchable.
Six Questions To Help You Figure Out What Media To Trust
From traditional news sources to social media and beyond, it can be challenging to figure out whether something is trustworthy. Author, journalist, researcher and media critic, Tom Rosenstiel offers great advice that can help you with the daunting task of figuring out what media sources to trust. Rosentiel offers six questions that can help you be a more critical thinker and keep you from being misled. These questions are the same ones that editors and media producers use to edit stories and create web pages:
- 1. Type: What kind of content is this?
- 2. Source: Who and what are the sources cited and why should I believe them?
- 3. Evidence: What’s the evidence and how was it vetted?
- 4. Interpretation: Is the main point of the piece proven by the evidence?
- 5. Completeness: What’s missing?
- 6. Knowledge: Am I learning every day what I need?
Also, when evaluating resources, remember to check your biases and consult the experts. Confirmation bias leads people to put more stock in information that confirms their beliefs and to discount information that doesn’t. The next time you’re appalled at some social media post, take a moment to do a little digging.
Importance of Journalism (John Oliver)
In this lengthy YouTube video (19:22), comedian John Oliver of Last Week Tonight, humorously discusses the importance of journalism, and our society's reliance on it. Funding deficiencies have led to fewer reporters covering the state house, local issues, scientific findings, or the federal government. The Fourth Estate is a shadow of what it once was thanks to abundance. This was not what we thought would happen.
Browser Extensions and Other Tools
There are browser extensions available that may help you gauge the trustworthiness of content on news sites. There are also tools available that assist with visual verification; these can help you identify the source of an image and determine if an image or video has been altered. Below are some examples of these resources: