According to a new analysis from the Pew Research Center, Americans ages 18–49 were more likely to accurately categorize factual statements as facts and opinion statements as opinions.
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You can test your own ability here, no matter your age.
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Read “What is Fake News” at https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/fakenewsFake News: Sources that intentionally fabricate information, disseminate deceptive content, or grossly distort actual news reports.
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Fake News: Sources that intentionally fabricate information, disseminate deceptive content, or grossly distort actual news reports.
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Satire: Sources that use humor, irony, exaggeration, ridicule, and false information to comment on current events.
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Bias: Sources that come from a particular point of view and may rely on propaganda, decontextualized information, and opinions distorted as facts.
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Rumor Mill: Sources that traffic in rumors, gossip, innuendo, and unverified claims.
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State News: Sources in repressive states operating under government sanction.
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Junk Science: Sources that promote pseudoscience, naturalistic fallacies, and other scientifically dubious claims.
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Clickbait: A strategically placed hyperlink designed to drive traffic to sources that provide generally credible content, but use exaggerated, misleading, or questionable headlines, social media descriptions, and/or images.
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Consider the source (to understand its mission and purpose)
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Read beyond the headline (to understand the whole story)
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Check the authors (to see if they are real and credible)
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Assess the supporting sources (to ensure they support the claims)
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Check the date of publication (to see if the story is relevant and up to date)
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Ask if it is a joke (to determine if it is meant to be satire)
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Review your own biases (to see if they are affecting your judgement)
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Ask experts (to get confirmation from independent people with knowledge).
Fact-checking The sites below generally review specific news stories and claims.
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Can be used to look up quotes and research authors of articles to see their professional credentials.
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Displays news coverage from “left”, “right”, and “center” sources. Use with caution as the categories are generated by users and reflect public perceptions of each news source rather than any actual bias in the individual articles displayed.
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A product of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, this site is terrific for checking up on political claims.
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Fake news database, tasked with “tracking fabricated news created to mislead”
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact researches the claims of politicians and checks their accuracy.
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One of the oldest debunking sites on the Internet, Snopes.com focuses on widely circulating urban legends, news stories and memes.
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Hoax-Slayer specifically focuses on email hoaxes, identity theft scams and spam.
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Focused primarily on political stories.
With the advent of the Internet and social media, news is distributed at an incredible rate by an unprecedented number of different media outlets. How do we choose which news to consume? Damon Brown gives the inside scoop on how the opinions and facts (and sometimes non-facts) make their way into the news and how the smart reader can tell them apart