LibGuides: Accessible copy of Fake News: Resources

What's wrong with fake news?

Why should you care about whether or not your news is real or fake?

You deserve the truth. You are smart enough to make up your own mind - as long as you have the real facts in front of you. You have every right to be insulted when you read fake news, because you are in essence being treated like an idiot.
Fake news destroys your credibility. If your arguments are built on bad information, it will be much more difficult for people to believe you in the future.
Fake news can hurt you, and a lot of other people. Purveyors of fake and misleading medical advice like Mercola.com and NaturalNews.com help perpetuate myths like HIV and AIDS aren't related, or that vaccines cause autism. These sites are heavily visited and their lies are dangerous.
Real news can benefit you. If you want to buy stock in a company, you want to read accurate articles about that company so you can invest wisely. If you are planning on voting in an election, you want to read as much good information on a candidate so you can vote for the person who best represents your ideas and beliefs. Fake news will not help you make money or make the world a better place, but real news can.

Other Resources

The Poynter Institute
The Poynter Institute develops resources for journalists and writers, plus offers resources on fact checking and media literacy for the general public.
The News Literacy Project Facebook Page
A nonprofit whose purpose is to provide tools and resources to middle and high school students (and their classrooms) on media literacy
Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education
From the Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association. This is an in-depth look at the factors that go into discerning the reliability of a claim.
Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers
Hands-on Fact-Checking: A Short Course
Created by the International Fact-Checking Network at the Poynter Institute and the American Press Institute, the course (designed for college students) includes lessons on identifying reliable sources in fact-checking, debunking viral misinformation, and deciding whether a statement is really checkable.

Deciding What's True: the rise of political fact-checking in American journalism by Lucas Graves
ISBN: 9780231542227
Publication Date: 2016-09-06

What can I do to avoid fake news?

Avoid Fake News

Check the source -- Is it a .com? .org? .edu or .gov? is the sources from a Google search or did you use an academic database?

Use the CRAAP Test -- Currency, Relevance, Accuracy, Authority, and Purpose.

Check the claims in the article. Can you follow up with them using reputable sources?

Question everything. Does the site have ads? Is the source from a think tank or nonprofit that has a stake in the subject of the article? What's the author's background?

Check any links in the article. Do they actually lead to information that verifies something in the article?

Fake news in the news

ABCNews: When Fake News Makes Real News Headline
About a fake story which was treated as real news. Traces some of the pipeline for developing and distributing fake news
NPR: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator
About Jestin Coler, who began creating and distributing fake news in 2013.
NPR: Students Have Dismaying Inability to Tell Fake News Apart
Many students cannot tell fake news from real news.
The Atlantic: The Food Babe, Enemy of Chemicals
An examination of claims made by The Food Babe, with pointed analysis by professor Kevin Folta of the University of Florida
New York Times: How Fake News Goes Viral
From a single Tweeter with 35 friends to being shared over 400,000 times through various forums, this article traces a Tweet made November 9th, 2016.
CNN: Fake News, Real Violence
"Pizzagate" was a fake news story which connected a pizzeria with a child pornography ring allegedly run by Hillary Clinton and John Podesta. On Sunday, December 3, 2016, an armed shooter entered the pizzeria and fired a shot before being accosted by the police.
NPR: How to Tell Real News from Fake News in 'Post-Truth' Era
This article discusses "post-truth", the idea that all news outlets will fail you eventually and it's impossible to know who to trust. It provides some commonsense advice on what to look for in a news outlet.
New York Times: From Headline to Photograph, a Fake News Masterpiece
In the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign, this recent college grad concocted a story about fraudulent Clinton votes found in an Ohio warehouse. The story was shared online by six million people, earning him thousands of dollars in ad revenue.
NPR: 'Rough Translation'
What Americans Can Learn From Fake News In Ukraine
Politico: The Supreme Court and Sharia Law: How a fake-news story spread
A bogus account began as a typo-ridden parody, but came to be embraced by millions.

Fact checking links

Factba.se
The site's goal "is to make available, unedited, the entire corpus of an individual's public statements and recordings. We will locate, transcribe, index and make available this information to the public, linking directly to the originating source...We are testing this concept right now with [President Trump]."
FactCheck.org
A monitor of the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players; searchable by subject. (Go to 'Archive,' then 'Browse by Tag.'
LinkedIn
A professional networking website where you can look up the authors of articles and books to see if they're credible.
National Public Radio (NPR) Politics: Fact Check
Politifact
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact researches the claims of politicians and checks their accuracy.
Quote Investigator
Explores the origins of quotations. Seeks to answer the question: Did he/she really say that?
Snopes.com
One of the oldest debunking sites on the Internet, Snopes.com focuses on urban legends, news stories and memes. the also cite their sources at the end of each debunking.
Washington Post Fact Checker
It's purpose "is to 'truth-squad' the statements of political figures regarding issues of great importance, be they national, international or local."

Known fake, parodic and misleading news sites

The Daily Dot: Fake News Sites List
NOTE: This list is not exhaustive and may be updated at any time. A compiled list of fake news sites to watch out for.
List of Fake and Parody News
Professor Zimdars' original list and criteria, with updates and addenda.
The Onion
One of America's premier parodic news sites.
The Borowitz Report
From humorist Andy Borowitz, a column parodizing and commenting on current news trends
Dr. Joseph Mercola
Mercola is a doctor of osteopathy who has frequently been targeted by the FDA for promoting false, misleading and even dangerous medical advice. His site promotes products and his blog includes false and/or misleading information about medical topics.