How can you be a more informed news consumer and fact-checker? Here are some tips.
In a time when Facebook feeds are filled with wild headlines, questionable news stories and angry aunts ranting about a post that just doesn’t look real, how can you determine if what you’re reading is legit?
Chip Stewart, an attorney and professor of journalism at TCU, talks to his students about how to be informed news consumers each semester, and we asked him to share some advice as part of the Star-Telegram’s project called The Source: Trust & Transparency in Local News.
What is a good practice for determining if the news you’re reading came from a legitimate source?
Find out who is funding your news. If you’re not paying for it, if you’re not subscribing, you are the product not the consumer. Remember that if you’re not paying for the news, someone else is, and a lot of time that is disinformation propaganda or PR.
Usually you can find out through a quick Google search who owns the operation and who it’s paid by — is it some shadow group or a think tank or a nonpartisan nonprofit?
(A tip from Nichole Manna, the author of this Q&A: The Daily Dot, a tech website that focuses on online news, compiled a list of 175 fake news websites that often show up on Facebook feeds. You can browse through the list here.)
What if someone is already reading the story. How can they determine if it’s real?
I find this to be helpful for myself but if something makes you really angry or really emotional or really happy, take that as a sign that you probably need to check it out. If it seems too evil or too good to be true, it probably is. Stop and realize where this is coming from.
What gets clicks and shares? Outrage.
The story might be overplayed. It could be really old, check the date. It could look like it’s something happening in your community but it’s really happening somewhere else. Use that as a sign that you probably need to check it out. Do a quick Google search.
(Another tip from Nichole: Does that storm photo look familiar? Is it too stunning to be real? Maybe it is. At The Wichita (Kansas) Eagle, photographer Travis Heying noticed in 2019 that a storm photo he took in 2018 was being circulated as a new one. He wrote about it here and offered some advice for how to verify the authenticity of photos. Sometimes they’re real, but the descriptions aren’t.)
If someone is suspicious of the content they’re reading and they want to Google it, what can they search for that will show them if it’s real or not?
First, look to see if anyone else is reporting it. Then ask yourself: “Is this a real website?” Some websites have been made to look just like regular media outlets but they’re fake news sites that exist and are run by someone somewhere else.
Ask yourself, “Where did this story come from?” Did you see it on Facebook? Then go off of Facebook and go to Google. Do a reverse image search (you can do that on Google here). Is that a real photo? If that photo is real, is it an old photo? Is it from the storm someone is saying it’s from or is it from a different one?
(Nichole: Check out the author. You can perform a quick Google search of the person’s name to see if the author has a portfolio and where else their work has been published. Many websites, like the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, post author pages and information at the bottom of their stories)
What if you see something that your friend shares and you think it’s fake. What’s the best way to approach that?
When something is generated from overseas, the only thing we can do is ignore it. I think it’s hard because when people share things on the internet, others don’t want to say, “Hey this is fake.” You don’t want to publicly shame someone. One thing to do is just go private and say, “Hey, just a heads up, that’s not real.”
There’s no magic amount of education that makes someone see that things are true or not. It’s on all of us to watch out for those types of things. The internet economy makes money by getting people to share and like stuff, and people will not care one bit about the truth.
(Nichole: You can also report fake news on social media. For example, on Twitter, users can report a tweet for being “misleading about a political election or other civic event.” Just click the three dots at the top of the tweet and choose “Report Tweet” to start the process. It’s a similar process on Facebook. Just click the three dots at the top of a post and choose “Find support or report post” and then choose “false information.”)
Any other advice for people who want to be better news consumers?
Trust the institutional source — your big media outlets, the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC. Go to your big institutions because they have big professional norms to follow.
Subscribe to your local newspaper. People tend to trust their local media more than the national media, and the only way it will work is if you support it ... You have to pay for journalism, it’s a common good.
Other ways to verify information
If you still find yourself stuck on a story or you’re trying to convince someone their post isn’t real, there are some other ways to verify your sources.
You can use a fact-checking service:
✓NewsGuard is a Google Chrome extension that uses red and green ratings and labels to help you know which information websites to trust.
✓Politifact, which is operated by the Poynter Institute, verifies statements made by politicians and elected officials. Politifact even has a page dedicated to Texas, which is produced in partnership with the Austin-American Statesman. Not only does Politifact give the truth, yes or no meter, reporters there explain why the statement is true or false.
✓Politifact also started Punditfact, which fact checks statements from “pundits, columnists, bloggers, political analysts, the hosts and guests of hosts, and other media members.” You can search by state or people. Want to check if something President Joe Biden said was true? Click here.
✓Snopes.com has been around long before “fake news” was a term. The website was originally launched to debunk urban legends and pop culture myths, but it’s shifted focus and has become an independent, investigative fact-checking website.
✓Google began its own fact-checker tool. You can search fact-checks about a topic or person or you can browse through the recent fact checks list.
✓Factcheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. It collaborates with Facebook to debunk false stories and political ads.
✓You can very the authenticity of online photos several ways: Google reverse image search, TinEye, YouTube Data Viewer, Foto Forensics.
