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Evaluating Information: Fake News: Evaluating a news article

How can I tell if a news report is real?

It is not easy to tell if a report is real, sometimes even legitimate news sources get fooled and repeat a fake news story. And the people that make up the stories are getting better and better at making their fake news look legitimate.  Here is an infographic from EasyBib that gives you some points on evaluating a news article:

 

How do I tell if it is Fake News

How to Spot Fake News, an article from FactCheck.org, has some good tips:

  • Check the source - Examine the site's URL for oddities.
    • For example: ABCNews.com.co mimics the real ABC News website, but .co is the domain code for the country of Columbia. A guide to Internet domain codes may be found here.
  • Is it a joke?
    • It could be satire, or was just not meant to be taken seriously.
  • Who is the author?
    • What are their credentials? Do a google search on the author to see what else they've written.
  • Read multiple sources.
    • Search for the same story coming from other sources to see if the information is being reported the same way.
  • Scan for spelling/grammatical errors.
    • A story coming from a legitimate source may have one or two that got away from the editor, but they may be rife in a fake story. This is partly due to a lot of fake news being generated internationally. ALL CAPS isn't a good sign.
  • Check links.
    • Do they work? Do they link to the right stories?

Conspiracy Theories:

What is QAnon -  https://www.bbc.com/news/53498434  

and the longer (23 min) version:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csws70

 

Deep Fakes:

A very important TedTalk on the threats and consequences of the artificial intelligence on the world:  DeepFakes

https://www.ted.com/talks/danielle_citron_how_deepfakes_undermine_truth_and_threaten_democracy