Triple-Check For Fake News on Social Media — Learning Resources

It happens to me all the time on social media. I see something interesting that connects with what I like or want to believe, start to read it, and then I immediately start to share it with my friends. I’m learning, however, to think more about it first. Now I’m spending more time considering whether what I see and read comes from a reputable news source or if some of the details in the article can survive a fact check.

Anyone can set up a catchy name on Facebook and send out news, but these authors don’t necessarily check or even care about the facts. Here’s what Brian Stelter on CNN has to say on the subject on his Oct 30, 2016 broadcast.                 

You can read more about this video at the CNN site.

Another complication is how to use and teach people to interact with satire sites such as The Onion or The Borowitz Report. Lots of people understand satire, but during the 2016 election, many people read satire articles and assumed they were factual.

Bottom line? Media literacy training is critical for everyone in the digital world.

Other Resources to Read

• Six Out of Ten of You Will Share This Link Without Reading It — Washington Post
• Fake News or Real? How to Self-check the News and Get the Facts — NPR
• Media Literacy in a Post-Truth Society — Julie Smith’s Media Literacy Education Blog
• Building Habits of Credibility into the Conversation and the Curriculum — MediaTechParenting.net
• Fake News & How Media Literacy is Protective — NetFamilyNews
• Media Literacy: How to Identify False or Misleading News Sources – Iowa Public Radio
• Teaching Information Literacy Now — School Library Journal
• The News User Manual Podcasts — Veteran journalists Jim Kane and Rich Nagle produce short podcast conversations explaining how each individual has a responsibility to access and curate the information that’s necessary to be an informed citizen — a new resource, but one that may become a staple for teachers who emphasize critical evaluation skills.
• 10 Journalism Brands Where You Find Real Facts Rather Than Alternative Facts — Forbes
• 2016 Guide to Best Fact-Checking on the Internet — The Daily Dot
• Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake News Sites —  The New York Times
• Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake-News Sites — The Wall Street Journal
• False, Misleading, and Satirical Sites on Social Media — Google Doc created by Media Professor Melissa Zimdars
• Most Students Don’t Know When News is Fake, Stanford Study Finds — Wall Street Journal  (This link was free when I added to this list.)
• Pizzagate: From Rumor to Hashtag to Gunfire in DC — Washington Post
• The Hoaxes, Fake News, and Misinformation We Saw on Election Day — Washington Post
• Media Literacy: How to Identify False or Misleading News Sources — Iowa Public Radio
• Top Ten News Literacy Tweeters — Samantha Stanley
• For the New Yellow Journalists Opportunity Comes in Clicks and Bucks — Washington Post
• Don’t Block #fakenews: Fight It With Facts — Philadelphia Inquirer
• Fixation on Fake News Overshadows Waning Trust of Real Reporting — New York Times
• Snopes’ Field Guide to Fake News Sites and Hoax Purveyors — Snopes.com
• Algorithms Can Stomp Out Fake News — The Atlantic
• Misinformation on Facebook Zuckerberg Lists Ways of Fighting Fake News — NPR
• The Nine Worst Fake News Sites — Gizmoto (written way back in 2015)
• Students Solve Facebook Fake News Problem in 36 Hour Hackathon — Business Insider
• How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study — New York Times
• How Colleges Teach Students Not to Be Duped — Philly.com
• Fake News Isn’t the Problem: Mainstream News With An Agenda Is — The Hill, An interesting perspective that differs slightly from many or the above articles on fake news because it explores the mainstream media’s role when it features news that is not really news.