How Do You Know if the News Source Is Credible

Guido Rosa/Getty Images/Ikon Images

Guido Rosa/Getty Images/Ikon Images

Fake news stories can take real-life consequences. On Sunday, police said a man with a burglarize who claimed to exist "self-investigating" a baseless online conspiracy theory entered a Washington, D.C., pizzeria and fired the weapon inside the eatery.

Then, yes, fake news is a big problem.

These stories have gotten a lot of attention, with headlines claiming Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump in November's election and sites like American News sharing misleading stories or taking quotes out of context. And when sites similar DC Gazette share stories about people who allegedly investigated the Clinton family unit being found dead, the stories go viral and some people believe them. Again, these stories are not true in whatsoever fashion.

Stopping the proliferation of false news isn't just the responsibility of the platforms used to spread it. Those who consume news also demand to discover means of determining if what they're reading is true. We offer several tips below.

The idea is that people should have a fundamental sense of media literacy. And based on a study recently released by Stanford University researchers, many people don't.

Sam Wineburg, a professor of teaching and history at Stanford and the atomic number 82 author of the study, said a solution is for all readers to read similar fact checkers. But how do fact checkers practise their task?

Alexios Mantzarlis, manager of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter, says fact checkers take a process for each merits they deal with.

"Yous'll isolate a claim that has something that can be objectively verified, you volition seek the all-time primary sources in that topic. Find whether they match or refute or show the claim existence made, then present with all limitations the data and what the data says about the claim being made," Mantzarlis says.

That's the framework for professionals, but there are ways for everyone to do a bit of fact checking themselves.

Melissa Zimdars is an assistant professor of communication and media at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass. When she saw her students referencing questionable sources, she created and shared a document with them of how to recollect well-nigh sources, as well as a listing of misleading, satirical and fake sites.

Both Mantzarlis and Zimdars agreed in that location are a few all-time practices people tin can use when reading articles online.

Pay attention to the domain and URL

Established news organizations usually own their domains and they take a standard look that yous are probably familiar with. Sites with such endings similar .com.co should make you raise your eyebrows and tip you off that you need to dig effectually more to see if they can exist trusted. This is true fifty-fifty when the site looks professional person and has semi-recognizable logos. For example, abcnews.com is a legitimate news source, but abcnews.com.co is not, despite its similar appearance.

Read the "Near U.s." section

Most sites will take a lot of information about the news outlet, the visitor that runs it, members of leadership, and the mission and ethics statement backside an organization. The language used here is straightforward. If it's melodramatic and seems overblown, yous should exist skeptical. Also, yous should be able to detect out more information nearly the organization'south leaders in places other than that site.

Wait at the quotes in a story

Or rather, look at the lack of quotes. Most publications have multiple sources in each story who are professionals and have expertise in the fields they talk nearly. If it's a serious or controversial result, there are more than likely to be quotes — and lots of them. Await for professors or other academics who tin speak to the research they've done. And if they are talking about research, expect up those studies.

Wait at who said them

Then, see who said the quotes, and what they said. Are they a reputable source with a championship that yous tin verify through a quick Google search? Say you're looking at a story and it says President Obama said he wanted to take everyone'southward guns away. And then there's a quote. Obama is an official who has almost everything he says recorded and archived. There are transcripts for pretty much any address or voice communication he has given. Google those quotes. See what the spoken language was near, who he was addressing and when it happened. Fifty-fifty if he did an exclusive interview with a publication, that same quote will be referenced in other stories, saying he said information technology while talking to the original publication.

Check the comments

A lot of these imitation and misleading stories are shared on social media platforms. Headlines are meant to get the reader'southward attention, but they're also supposed to accurately reflect what the story is virtually. Lately, that hasn't been the case. Headlines often will be written in exaggerated language with the intention of being misleading and so attached to stories that are about a completely unlike topic or merely not truthful. These stories commonly generate a lot of comments on Facebook or Twitter. If a lot of these comments call out the article for being fake or misleading, information technology probably is.

Contrary image search

A picture should be authentic in illustrating what the story is about. This often doesn't happen. If people who write these fake news stories don't even leave their homes or interview anyone for the stories, it'southward unlikely they take their own pictures. Practice a picayune detective work and reverse search for the image on Google. You can do this past right-clicking on the image and choosing to search Google for it. If the image is appearing on a lot of stories about many different topics, there's a good chance it's not actually an image of what information technology says information technology was on the first story.

These tips are but a commencement at determining what type of news an commodity is. Zimdars outlined these and others in a guide for her students.

If you practise these steps, you're helping yourself and you're helping others by not increasing the circulation of these stories.

And y'all won't be the but one trying to stop the spread of this fake content. The visitor leaders behind the platforms these stories are shared on are trying to figure out how to gear up the issue from their side, but they are too trying to make sure not to limit anyone's correct to liberty of spoken language. It's a catchy position to be in, but they've said they'll effort. In the end, it really does depend on taking responsibleness and existence an engaged consumer of news.

Here'southward one final thing. Satirical publications exist and serve a purpose, but are clearly labeled as exaggerated and humorous by the writers and owners. Some of the more well-known ones like The Onion and ClickHole use satire to talk about electric current events. If people don't understand that, they might share these articles after reading them in the literal sense.

If this happens or if you see your friends sharing blatantly faux news, be a friend and kindly tell them it's not real. Don't shy away from these conversations even if they might be uncomfortable. As said, anybody has to assist fix the fake news trouble.

Wynne Davis is a Digital News intern.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/12/05/503581220/fake-or-real-how-to-self-check-the-news-and-get-the-facts

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