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5 Ways Teachers Are Fighting Fake News February 16, 2017

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5 Ways Teachers Are Fighting Fake News February 16, 2017

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1. Do you know who the source is, or was it created by a common or well-known source? Example National Geographic, Discovery, etc.
2. How does it compare to what you already know?
3. Does the information make sense? Do you understand the information?
4. Can you verify that the information agrees with three or more other sources that are also reliable?
5. Have experts in the field been connected to it or authored the information?
6. How current is the information?
7. Does it have a copyright?

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As the national attention to fake news and the debate over what to do about it continue, one place many are looking for solutions is in the classroom.

Since a recent Stanford study showed that students at practically all grade levels can't determine fake news from the real stuff, the push to teach media literacy has gained new momentum. The study showed that while students absorb media constantly, they often lack the critical thinking skills needed to tell fake news from the real stuff.

Teachers are taking up the challenge to change that. NPR Ed put out a social media call asking how educators are teaching fake news and media literacy, and we got a lot of responses. Here's a sampling from around the country:
Fake news "Simon Says"
In Scott Bedley's version of Simon Says, it's not those two magic words that keep you in the game, but deciding correctly whether a news story is real or not.

To start off the game, Bedley sends his fifth-graders at Plaza Vista School in Irvine, Calif., an article to read on their laptops. He gives them about three minutes to make their decision - they have to read the story carefully, examine its source and use their judgment. Those who think the article is false, stand up. The "true" believers stay in their seats.

Bedley says he's been trying to teach his students for a while to look carefully at what they're reading and where it comes from. He's got a seven-point checklist his students can follow:

1. Do you know who the source is, or was it created by a common or well-known source? Example National Geographic, Discovery, etc.
2. How does it compare to what you already know?
3. Does the information make sense? Do you understand the information?
4. Can you verify that the information agrees with three or more other sources that are also reliable?
5. Have experts in the field been connected to it or authored the information?
6. How current is the information?
7. Does it have a copyright?
Subtle changes
Bedley also teamed up recently with Todd Flory at Wheatland Elementary School in Wichita, Kan., to do a fake news challenge via Skype. Flory's fourth-graders chose two real articles and wrote a fake article of their own. Then, they presented them to Bedley's class in California.

The fifth-graders had four minutes to do some extra research based on the presentations, and then they decided which article out of the three were fake. Most importantly, they had to explain why they thought it was fake. Otherwise, no points.

Flory says writing the fake news article was more difficult for his students than they expected because they had to make it believable.

"It really hammered home the idea to them that fake news doesn't have to be too sensational," he says. "It can be a very subtle change, but that subtle change can have big consequences."

Every Friday, Flory's class participates in what he calls Genius Hour. His students propose a question to answer through online research. But before they took to the Internet, Flory had to walk his students through the steps: What are reliable and trusted websites? How do you effectively search on the Internet and verify information?

He uses Skype to connect his students with researchers and scientists from all over the world. He calls this "authentic research."

"It's so much more powerful for them to do some of this authentic research when they're able to hear from a scientist who's seeing firsthand the effects of climate change," Flory says. This year's class got to talk to a penguin scientist.

Flory says he's not only teaching his students effective media literacy skills; he is also helping them to be better citizens through global engagement and interaction.
Let them eat fake (news)
Remember Marie Antoinette and "Let them eat cake" - her famous line about the poor that got her in all that trouble?

Thing is, it never happened. Fake news!

For Diane Morey and her ninth-graders at Danvers High School in Danvers, Mass., that's a teachable moment.

"The media of the day didn't have Facebook, Twitter or partisan websites," Morey says. "But they did have pamphlets."

She shows her class cartoons and pamphlets from the French Revolutionary period that criticized Antoinette, and then discusses the conclusions that were made from those sources. She also includes a primary source: a letter written by Antoinette.

Morey says history is rich with examples of fake news, and since source analysis is the core of her lesson plans, she doesn't need a textbook.

"We don't study [history] to memorize Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI," she explains. "We're studying this because we can see this happening in the current-day political climate."

Morey encourages students to bring in examples of articles from today's news that don't ring true.

"Once you expose it to them," she says, "it's like a game for them, seeing, 'Hey, I'm not sure I can trust this.' "
Extra layers
For 13 years, Larry Ferlazzo has been teaching kids who are learning English how to read and write. Now, he's adding another layer: helping them figure out if what they're reading is true.

Ferlazzo teaches at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif. He's also a blogger and journalist.

Last month, he wrote a lesson plan on addressing fake news to English language learners (ELLs), which was published in The New York Times.

He says media literacy is especially important for ELLs for two reasons. First, they're not fluent in the language they're reading, adding an extra level of difficulty in deciding what to believe. On top of that, false or exaggerated news about immigration could have a major impact on their lives.

His lesson starts off with a few examples of reliable and fake news. Then, some basic journalism stuff: Students identify the different parts of the news, from the "lede" to quotations. They enter all that into a diagram on paper so they have a visual representation of what they're reading.

That diagram eventually becomes a guide for students to write their own fake news lede that they can share with other classmates or post on a class blog.
Media consumers and contributors
In 2015, Spencer Brayton and his colleague Natasha Casey revamped a media literacy course for students at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Ill. Brayton says the key is the critical approach.

"Students come in expecting that we're going to lecture," Brayton explains. "But we have them think about certain power structures in how information is produced and how it reaches them. If they're going to understand how they're going to take it in, then they have to know how the news is going to be produced."

To take the class, students need a Twitter account. From the very first week, they are asked to follow five to 10 accounts on Twitter that promote media and information literacy, like Media Literacy Now or Renee Hobbs.

As they follow these posts and add additional ones, the goal is that they'll start to recognize fake news and other biases or viewpoints in media.

By the end of the course, Brayton says students begin to see themselves not only as creators of information, but as credible sources of information too.

The Twitter assignments encourage his students to engage with social media - retweeting, following and commenting - which Brayton says helps his students see how they play a role in spreading information to other media consumers. That means they have to take what they share more seriously.

"In looking at this issue, people seem to want a quick solution to fake news, but I'm not sure there is a solution (at least an easy one)," Brayton writes in an email. "Students need to recognize that these skills and ideas need to stay with them through adulthood, but that's easier said than done - we all fall into this trap."

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As the national attention to fake news and the debate over what to do about it continue, one place many are looking for solutions is in the classroom. Since a recent Stanford study showed that students at practically all grade levels can't determine fake news from the real stuff, the push to teach media literacy has gained new momentum.

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How to Spot Fake News (and Teach Kids to Be Media-Savvy)

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Clickbait, hyper-partisan opinion, and completely false information are running wild across the internet. Advice from Common Sense Media editors.

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It's important to figure out the purpose of a website because it's not always clear what the author's intent is.

There are some red flags you should look out for when evaluating online sources. We will review what these are so you know what to pay attention to!

The design of a website can be professional and have great navigation, but the content could be skewed, misinformed, or even completely false.

Who or What is Behind the Content?

When evaluating for purpose, a good starting point is to check out the page that explains the company behind the website's content. This is commonly located at the bottom of the page, but can sometimes be located elsewhere.

It can be labeled as:

The "About Us" page will explain the purpose and goals of the company or organization. It may also include information about the history of the company or its intended audience.

But be careful, some organizations, companies, and people aren't upfront about their purpose, so you need to look at other factors as well.

Apply It: Evaluate the Manhattan Airport Foundation

Take a look at The Manhattan Airport Foundation (TMAF) , for example. Can you figure out who is behind this website?
Do you see the red flag?
This website has great design and content. The "About Us" section looks legitimate, but there aren't any specific people mentioned. After some investigation, it appears the website is a (very convincing) hoax!

Apply It: The Wirecutter

Go to The Wirecutter's "Hello!" page . What can you learn about the company?

This page provides more information about the company and its history, its processes, as well as the names of the editors.

Look for Red Flags

You should definitely be suspicious if you do not see any information about the person or organization who runs the website. If they cannot even explain who they are or what they do, they probably are not authoritative enough to inform you on other topics.

Don't Judge a Site By Its Design

Of course, it is imperative that you analyze the content you want to cite in your paper. A website could have great design and a detailed "About Us" section, but if the purpose of the article is to do something besides informing you about information in a balanced way, that should be another red flag.

We'll go through some questions you can ask to figure out if the information you want to use is appropriate for research.

Top-Level Domains

The top-level domain can help you figure out who is responsible for a website's content. Consider the top-level domain when you are analyzing the purpose and how the top-level

domain may impact the website's credibility. For example:

The top-level domain .gov is for U.S. government agencies. Their purpose is to inform you and information found on these sites are authoritative, informative, and credible.

Sales & Advertisements

Read through the article or information you want to cite in your paper.

Is the purpose to Sell or Advertise?

Is the website or author trying to sell you something?

Are there advertisements all over the website?

Apply It: Analyzing Online Videos

Analyzing the purpose of online content does not just apply to articles with text. Videos can also be used to educate, or to skew the truth so that you will want to buy or use a product.

Based on what you have learned so far, think about the video's purpose and why it would be a good resource to use when learning about malware. Is this a better source than you might find by going to Google and searching for malware videos, for example?

When you use search engines to find information, be careful when you analyze a website's purpose. If you are going to a trusted source like a government website, whose purpose is to educate the public, you don't need to be quite as careful. you should still think critically about the information they are giving you.

Gossip & Entertainment

Read through the article or information you want to cite in your paper.

Is the purpose to Entertain?

Is the information you want to use considered gossip?

Is it speculative, or without reliable references?

Is it meant entirely for entertainment purposes?

Read through the article or information you want to cite in your paper.

Is the purpose Satirical?

Satire is when humor, sarcasm, or irony is used to poke fun at or criticize people's flaws, ignorance, or stupidity.

Satire can be either exaggerated, or completely made up.

One example is the article " Takeout Burrito Shielded From Cold As Though It Were Week-Old Newborn ."

It is from which writes humorous, but completely false, stories.

Is It Academic?

Read through the article or information you want to cite in your paper.

Is the article or website content Academic?

Is the article written by a scholar?

Is the website associated with a college, university or a professional journal

Information found on academic websites can almost always be considered credible and authoritative, as their purpose is to inform readers.​

Additional Factors: Timeliness, Audience, Depth & Breadth of Information

There are some other factors to consider when evaluating the purpose of a website as well:
Timeliness

When was the information published?

Is there more recent information available?

Audience

Who is the audience for this website?

Is it targeted to children? Scholars? Average people?

Depth of Information

Does the source provide a deep, thorough analysis of information on the web site?
Breadth of Information

What is the breadth of information covered on the topic?

Conclusion

You learned:

What factors to consider when evaluating an online source's purpose

Questions to ask when evaluating a website for purpose:

Who or what is behind the content?

Is the top-level domain known to have credible content?

Is the website or author trying to sell you something?

Is the purpose to entertain?

Is the content a satire?

Is it academic?

Who is the audience for this website?

Does the timeliness affect the information?

What is the depth and breadth of information?

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Practice: Evaluating Purpose - EasyBib Blog

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See more lessons on evaluating purpose linked here. Overview You will learn: What to look for and what questions to ask when evaluating the purpose of a website Video: Evaluating Purpose Watch the video below to learn more about evaluating purpose: Evaluating the Purpose of a Website It's important to ...

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Why Citations Matter: A Lesson in Preventing “Alternative Facts”

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Why Citations Matter: A Lesson in Preventing “Alternative Facts”

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Today, teachers and students alike are inundated with headlines and breaking news stories. We read them in newspapers, on tablets and phones, and consume them live on television. But in a world where " fake news" and " alternative facts " threaten to cloak actual truth, educators everywhere have been presented an incredible teaching opportunity. There has never been a better time than the present to discuss with students of any subject area or grade level the importance of citing reliable sources in research projects.

Here are the ways accurate citations can help your students achieve academic success, and how you can answer the dreaded question, "why should I cite my sources?"

They Give Credit to the Right People

Citing their sources makes sure that the reader can differentiate the student's original thoughts from those of other researchers. Not only does this make sure that the sources they use receive proper credit for their work, it ensures that the student receives deserved recognition for their unique contributions to the topic. Whether the student is citing in MLA, APA, or any other style, citations serve as a natural way to place a student's work in the broader context of the subject area, and serve as an easy way to gauge their commitment to the project.

They Provide Hard Evidence of Ideas

Having many citations from a wide variety of sources related to their idea means that the student is working on a well-researched and respected subject. Citing sources that back up their claim creates room for fact-checking and further research. And, if they can cite a few sources that have the converse opinion or idea, and then demonstrate to the reader why they believe that that viewpoint is wrong by again citing credible sources, the student is well on their way to winning over the reader and cementing their point of view.

The point of research projects is not to regurgitate information that can already be found elsewhere. We have Google for that! What the student's project aim to do is promote an original idea or a spin on an existing idea, and use reliable sources to promote that idea. Copying or directly referencing a source without proper citation can lead to not only a poor grade, but accusations of academic dishonesty. By citing their sources regularly and accurately, students can easily avoid the trap of plagiarism, and promote further research on their topic.

They Create Better Researchers

By researching sources to back up and promote their ideas, students are becoming better researchers without even knowing it! Each time a new source is read or researched, the student is becoming more engaged with the project and is developing a deeper understanding of the subject area. Proper citations demonstrate a breadth of the student's reading and dedication to the project itself. By creating citations, students are compelled to make connections between their sources and discern research patterns. Each time they complete this process, they are helping themselves become better researchers and writers overall.

For further reading on the topic of spotting "fake news" and finding reliable sources:

For citation help and style guides:

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Why Citations Matter: A Lesson in Preventing "Alternative Facts" - EasyBib Blog

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Today, teachers and students alike are inundated with headlines and breaking news stories. We read them in newspapers, on tablets and phones, and consume them live on television. But in a world where " fake news" and " alternative facts " threaten to cloak actual truth, educators everywhere have been presented an incredible teaching opportunity.

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Glossary: The Language of News Literacy | Stony Brook Center for News Literacy

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Media Bias is a pattern of unfairness or willful inaccuracy over time by a specific journalist or news outlet. It cannot be proven by a single isolated incident. Audience Bias is a News Literacy term describing the tendency of individuals to see bias in news media reports because they are unconsciously viewing journalism through their own biases.

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SPJ Code of Ethics - Society of Professional Journalists

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Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.

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Markham Nolan: How to separate fact and fiction online

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By the end of this talk, there will be 864 more hours of video on YouTube and 2.5 million more photos on Facebook and Instagram. So how do we sort through the deluge?

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Not all scientific studies are created equal - David H. Schwartz

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View full lesson: Not all scientific studies are created equal - David H. Schwartz Every day, we are bombarded by attention grabbing headlines that promise miracle cures to all of our ailments -- often backed up by a "scientific study." But what are these studies, and how do we know if they are reliable?

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Lesson Plan: Identifying High-Quality Sites

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Common Sense is the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the 21st century.

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LESSONS & MATERIALS News & Media Literacy (Commonsensemedia)

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News&Media Literacy Lessons (Commonsensemedia

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News and Media Literacy Resource Center | Common Sense Education

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Prepare your students for tomorrow's headlines with essential news and media literacy lessons, videos, printables, and more. Get a just-right resource for your classroom.

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News and America’s Kids: How Young People Perceive and Are Impacted by the News (Commonsensemedia )

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News and America's Kids investigates how children get their news, how much they trust different news sources, whether they can spot "fake news," and more. This report captures children's candid feelings via an online survey. The survey was conducted in January 2017 and included 853 children age 10-18 drawn from a nationally representative panel, as well as an oversample of African-American and Hispanic/Latino children drawn from an opt-in web panel. Watch the video and read our blog post for highlights.

Our News- and Media-Literacy Resources

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News and America's Kids: How Young People Perceive and Are Impacted by the News | Common Sense Media

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News and America's Kids investigates how children get their news, how much they trust different news sources, whether they can spot "fake news," and more. This report captures children's candid feelings via an online survey.

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News and America’s Kids: How Young People Perceive and Are Impacted by the News (Commonsensemendia)

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Common Sense Media improves the lives of kids and families by providing independent reviews, age ratings, & other information about all types of media.

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Lesson plan: How to teach your students about fake news (PBS )

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Back to lesson plans archive

Lesson plan: How to teach your students about fake news

Fake news is making news, and it's a problem.

Not only did a BuzzFeed data analysis find that viral stories falsely claiming that the Pope endorsed Donald Trump and that Hillary Clinton sold weapons to terrorists receive more Facebook attention than the most popular news stories from established news outlets, but a false story about child trafficking in a Washington, D.C. pizza restaurant inspired a North Carolina man to drive 5 hours with a shotgun and other weapons to investigate.

This lesson gives students media literacy skills they need to navigate the media, including how to spot fake news.

Social studies, U.S. government, civics, journalism

One 50-minute class

A recent study by Stanford University found an overwhelming majority of students were not able to tell the difference between so-called fake news and real news. Part of the solution involves providing students with the media literacy skills they need to evaluate sources, including social media. With the help of NewsHour Extra, students will explore the problems with fake news and gain confidence exploring the media that they come across every day.

How do you know if a news source is reliable?

Warm up activity

Complete the following PBS NewsHour Extra Daily News Story activity with your students: Did fake news influence the outcome of Election 2016? You may also want to show your class Craig Silverman's from Buzzfeed, which is the subject of the NewsHour piece.

Procedure
Note: Given time constraints, you may choose to watch the video, read the text or choose which questions you will address with your students.

1. A group of researchers at Stanford University made quite a stir recently when their study revealed how susceptible young people are to fake news. Listen to the NPR story (4:14) Stanford Study Finds Most Students Vulnerable To Fake News and ask your students why they think this piece made front page headlines. Let your students know that the study has been the subject of conversation in news rooms and faculty rooms across the country. They will appreciate knowing that you care about their well-being and are interested in teaching news literacy skills.
Share the following with your students: Prof. Wineburg says one mistake schools make is to block certain websites from students while they are at school. "In many schools there are internet filters that direct students to previously vetted sites and reliable sources of information. But what happens when they leave school and they take out their phone and they look at their Twitter feed? How do they become prepared to make the choices about what to believe, what to forward, what to post to their friends when they've given no practice in doing those kinds of things in school?" Do your students agree with Dr. Wineburg? Should schools block certain websites? Why or why not?

2. The News Literacy Project and Checkology created a checklist of "Ten questions for fake news detection." Read it out loud with your students. Ask them if they have any questions about the checklist and which points they think will help them the most when it comes to detecting fake news.

3. Next, explore the following top fake news stories from Craig Silverman's Buzzfeed article. Using the checklist above-just based on the headline alone-how could students detect the likelihood of these stories being fake?

4. Have students study two stories from the chart above by looking at the fact checking and debunking Internet rumor website Snopes :

*Note: If you have any questions or concerns, talk with your technology coordinator or administrator and perhaps think about sending an email home letting parents know you are teaching important media literacy skills. There are many wonderful resources to help teachers learn about media literacy. Here are just a few to check out: The News Literacy Project, NAMLE, Media Education Lab, Project Look Smart and Center for News Literacy.

Extension Activities

Fake news might be a case of history repeating itself. Check out the role fake news has played in U.S. history in this Washington Post piece: Fake News? That's a very old story.

Who are some of the people behind fake news? What would make a person want to create a fake news story? This Eastern European teenager says he's just giving people what they want and making a lot more than the average yearly income of $5,000 in his hometown. Take a look at this NBC News story: Fake news: How a partying Macedonian teen earns thousands publishing lies

We also recommend Full Frontal with Samantha Bee's piece on 'Fake News, Real Consequences' but for more mature high school students. Be sure to preview before you show your class.

By Victoria Pasquantonio, PBS NewsHour education editor and 13-year social studies and English teacher.

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Lesson plan: How to teach your students about fake news | Lesson Plan | PBS NewsHour Extra

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Back to lesson plans archive Fake news is making news, and it's a problem. Not only did a BuzzFeed data analysis find that viral stories falsely claiming that the Pope endorsed Donald Trump and that Hillary Clinton sold weapons to terrorists receive more Facebook attention than the most popular news stories from established news outlets, but a false story about child trafficking in a Washington, D.C.

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Lesson Plan: Fighting Fake News

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By now, you've probably heard about one very real consequence of fake news - the infamous "pizzagate" conspiracy theory that ended with Edgar Welch, 28, firing a real gun inside a real Washington, D.C., pizzeria filled with real people.

When The New York Times later asked Welch what he thought when he realized there were no child slaves inside the restaurant, as one fake news story had led him to believe, he responded: "The intel on this wasn't 100 percent."

Welch isn't the only one struggling to tell fact from fiction in this digital age. A recent Stanford study found that America's middle, high school and college students are shockingly bad at it, too. It's clear that something has to change in the nation's classrooms. That something, according to Professor Sam Wineburg, one of those Stanford researchers, is "practice."

"How do they become prepared to make the choices about what to believe, what to forward, what to post to their friends," Wineburg asked on NPR's All Things Considered, "when they've been given no practice in school?"

And he's right. Many schools - perhaps most - aren't doing nearly enough to help students learn how to sort fact from social-media fiction. But some are.
"Like a flu in the winter"
"The question that many of you asked on your annotation of pizzagate was 'Why would anyone start a rumor?' " Patricia Hunt says to her students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va. "The question I want you to be thinking about today when we do this next lesson is 'Why would anyone believe it?' "

Hunt teaches U.S. and Virginia government. She's a 24-year veteran of the classroom, but today she's doing something she has never done before: helping to pilot a new, digital curriculum called the c heckology virtual classroom. It comes from the nonprofit The News Literacy Project. The morning's lesson kicks off with a video of Matea Gold, a political reporter with The Washington Post.

"Viral content includes stories, vignettes, ads, rumors and memes that catch on like a flu in the winter, quickly passing from one person to the next, often with little regard as to whether the content is true or not," Gold says from the Post's newsroom.

Hunt's students, most of them seniors, sit in clusters of threes and fours. Each has a laptop. After the video, they're presented with a series of viral stories. Some are propaganda. Some are ads. And some are pure fact.

"We don't know which is which at this point," laughs Kahder Smith, feeling a little overwhelmed. "We actually have to sit down, take our time, and actually read it. And probably Google some stuff to see if it's real or not."

The students' first test comes from Facebook. A post claims that more than a dozen people died after receiving the flu vaccine in Italy and that the CDC is now telling people not to get a flu shot. Autumn Cooper is torn.

"I mean, I've heard many rumors that the flu shot's bad for you," Cooper says. But instinct tells her the story's wrong. "It just doesn't look like a reliable source. It looks like this is off Facebook and someone shared it."

Cooper labels the story "fiction." And she's right.

Her classmate Suvra Das takes a different path to the same answer. When he's not sure of a story, he says, he now checks the comments section to see if a previous reader has already done the research.

"Because they usually figure it out," Das says. And, indeed, he wasn't the first to question the vaccine story's veracity. "Like one comment was, 'I just fact-checked this, and it doesn't appear to be true. Where else do you see this to be true?' "

The students come up with a few other red flags they can look for whenever they're unsure: no author byline, no quoted sources, no coverage elsewhere.
"Damn, why did I just read that?"
The News Literacy Project was founded nearly nine years ago by a Pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter with the Los Angeles Times, Alan C. Miller. The group and its mission have been endorsed by 33 "partner" news organizations, including The Associated Press, The New York Times and NPR. That mission has always been to give students the tools to be smarter consumers - not just of news, but of all information. In May, the group unveiled its checkology virtual classroom. There's a free, basic version and a premium version that's more interactive for students.

"The No. 1 question that I love asking [students] is, 'Where do you get your news?' " says Elis Estrada, the group's Washington, D.C., program manager. "And the majority of them say, 'What is news?' They don't even know what it is. The fact that we have to start there is really telling."

Kahder Smith says he's happy to get the guided practice.

"I fall to fake news all the time. Even just random Twitter posts, and I'm like, 'Damn, why did I just read that?' "

Instead of teaching students the fundamentals of fact-checking, many schools simply ignore the problem, blocking social media sites on school computers.

"One of my friends says that's like teaching [students] to drive in the parking lot and then sending them out on the interstate and saying 'Good luck!' " says Audrey Church, president of the American Association of School Librarians. "This is something children don't know unless we teach them. They're not looking for bias. They take what they see on their device at face value, and so teaching them to be critical, thoughtful consumers of information is a challenge that's increasing."

Indeed, many of Hunt's students admit they don't consume news from traditional sources: not from TV networks or newspapers or even the websites of the major papers. One asked if NPR traffics in fake news.

Instead, these teens say they get their news largely from the social media on their smartphones. An infinite stream of stories. Some true. Some false. Much of it written by strangers hoping their readers can't tell the difference.

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By now, you've probably heard about one very real consequence of fake news - the infamous "pizzagate" conspiracy theory that ended with Edgar Welch, 28, firing a real gun inside a real Washington, D.C., pizzeria filled with real people.

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The Earth Is Flat? Check Wikipedia (npr.org)

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Fake news has been, well, in the news a lot lately. It seems no claim is too absurd to be aired.

For example, NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal has just become the fourth NBA star to make public remarks that he believes the Earth is flat, not round.

"I'm just saying. I drive from Florida to California all the time, and it's flat to me," he said on a podcast he hosts.

For the world's largest crowdsourced encyclopedia, combating myths like this is nothing new. (Check its entry on contemporary flat-eartherism, titled, " Modern flat Earth societies.")

"Wikipedia has been dealing with fake news since it started 16 years ago," notes LiAnna Davis, deputy director of the Wiki Education Foundation.

To combat misinformation, Wikipedia has developed a robust corps of volunteer editors. Anyone can write new entries and scrutinize existing ones for adherence to Wikipedia's rules on sourcing and neutrality. While it's not free of errors or pranks, what results is a resource that 50 million people turn to daily on hundreds of thousands of topics in a few dozen languages.

Today, educators are among those more concerned than ever with standards of truth and evidence and with the lightning-fast spread of misinformation online. And the Wiki Education Foundation, a freestanding nonprofit, is sharing Wikipedia's methods with a growing number of college students, striking a blow for information literacy along the way.

The foundation gives professors the technical assistance they need to assign students to write a brand-new Wikipedia entry, or expand an existing entry, on any topic in virtually any discipline.

This spring, 7,500 students are expected to participate. Among the many items past students have written on are:

Since the program began six years ago, Davis says, students have collectively added more than 25 million words of content to Wikipedia.

Jennifer Malkowski, an assistant professor of film and media studies at Smith College, assigned her class on new media and participatory culture to write and contribute to Wikipedia entries this past fall.

"One of the things they really liked about it was the ability to share knowledge beyond the professor - that audience of one," she says. While all Smith students are expected to use good research methods in their classes, knowing that their entries might be rejected outright if they didn't conform to Wikipedia's standards "felt like a higher stake than the difference between a B and an A-minus," she says.

Malkowski will be leading a workshop to help her colleagues, some of whom are less technically minded, learn how to make Wikipedia assignments in their own classes as well.

Davis says many professors report a greater level of effort from their students on Wikipedia assignments. "If you're writing something millions of people are going to read, it's a reason to do a really good job, to go into a library and get a deep understanding of the topic."

Some professors, like Tamar Carroll, an assistant professor of history at the Rochester Institute of Technology, see Wikipedia as a way to make previously neglected areas of knowledge more visible. For Carroll, it's women's history. She says a former student recently emailed her to say that her Wikipedia entry on Mary Stafford Anthony, the suffragist and sister of Susan B. Anthony, was "the most meaningful assignment she had" as an undergraduate.

There's another learning opportunity too. Every Wikipedia entry has a "talk" page, where editors discuss changes, and a "view history" page that shows additions and deletions over time.

Peeking behind that curtain, says Malkowski, helps "expose how knowledge is collectively created and how different voices might come to consensus, or not, on a particular topic." Right now, she adds, "is an especially important time to be asking these epistemological questions."

According to the foundation's own survey, 87 percent of university faculty who participated in the program reported an increase in their students' media literacy. By grinding some Internet info-sausage themselves, essentially, they gained a better understanding of what goes into it.

It's an interesting turn of events for Wikipedia, which, as Davis acknowledges, has had a bad rap in academic circles as the lazy student's substitute for real research.

"When I first started going to academic conferences, people would hide and say, 'Don't let my department chair see me talking to you,' " says Davis. She added that Wikipedia should only be a starting point for a university-level research paper.

But if you want to check what shape the Earth is, it's a pretty reliable source.

A version of this story originally ran on NPR Ed in February.

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Fake news has been, well, in the news a lot lately. It seems no claim is too absurd to be aired. For example, NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal has just become the fourth NBA star to make public remarks that he believes the Earth is flat, not round. "I'm just saying.

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1. Do you know who the source is, or was it created by a common or well-known source? Example National Geographic, Discovery, etc.
2. How does it compare to what you already know?
3. Does the information make sense? Do you understand the information?
4. Can you verify that the information agrees with three or more other sources that are also reliable?
5. Have experts in the field been connected to it or authored the information?
6. How current is the information?
7. Does it have a copyright?

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As the national attention to fake news and the debate over what to do about it continue, one place many are looking for solutions is in the classroom.

Since a recent Stanford study showed that students at practically all grade levels can't determine fake news from the real stuff, the push to teach media literacy has gained new momentum. The study showed that while students absorb media constantly, they often lack the critical thinking skills needed to tell fake news from the real stuff.

Teachers are taking up the challenge to change that. NPR Ed put out a social media call asking how educators are teaching fake news and media literacy, and we got a lot of responses. Here's a sampling from around the country:
Fake news "Simon Says"
In Scott Bedley's version of Simon Says, it's not those two magic words that keep you in the game, but deciding correctly whether a news story is real or not.

To start off the game, Bedley sends his fifth-graders at Plaza Vista School in Irvine, Calif., an article to read on their laptops. He gives them about three minutes to make their decision - they have to read the story carefully, examine its source and use their judgment. Those who think the article is false, stand up. The "true" believers stay in their seats.

Bedley says he's been trying to teach his students for a while to look carefully at what they're reading and where it comes from. He's got a seven-point checklist his students can follow:

1. Do you know who the source is, or was it created by a common or well-known source? Example National Geographic, Discovery, etc.
2. How does it compare to what you already know?
3. Does the information make sense? Do you understand the information?
4. Can you verify that the information agrees with three or more other sources that are also reliable?
5. Have experts in the field been connected to it or authored the information?
6. How current is the information?
7. Does it have a copyright?
Subtle changes
Bedley also teamed up recently with Todd Flory at Wheatland Elementary School in Wichita, Kan., to do a fake news challenge via Skype. Flory's fourth-graders chose two real articles and wrote a fake article of their own. Then, they presented them to Bedley's class in California.

The fifth-graders had four minutes to do some extra research based on the presentations, and then they decided which article out of the three were fake. Most importantly, they had to explain why they thought it was fake. Otherwise, no points.

Flory says writing the fake news article was more difficult for his students than they expected because they had to make it believable.

"It really hammered home the idea to them that fake news doesn't have to be too sensational," he says. "It can be a very subtle change, but that subtle change can have big consequences."

Every Friday, Flory's class participates in what he calls Genius Hour. His students propose a question to answer through online research. But before they took to the Internet, Flory had to walk his students through the steps: What are reliable and trusted websites? How do you effectively search on the Internet and verify information?

He uses Skype to connect his students with researchers and scientists from all over the world. He calls this "authentic research."

"It's so much more powerful for them to do some of this authentic research when they're able to hear from a scientist who's seeing firsthand the effects of climate change," Flory says. This year's class got to talk to a penguin scientist.

Flory says he's not only teaching his students effective media literacy skills; he is also helping them to be better citizens through global engagement and interaction.
Let them eat fake (news)
Remember Marie Antoinette and "Let them eat cake" - her famous line about the poor that got her in all that trouble?

Thing is, it never happened. Fake news!

For Diane Morey and her ninth-graders at Danvers High School in Danvers, Mass., that's a teachable moment.

"The media of the day didn't have Facebook, Twitter or partisan websites," Morey says. "But they did have pamphlets."

She shows her class cartoons and pamphlets from the French Revolutionary period that criticized Antoinette, and then discusses the conclusions that were made from those sources. She also includes a primary source: a letter written by Antoinette.

Morey says history is rich with examples of fake news, and since source analysis is the core of her lesson plans, she doesn't need a textbook.

"We don't study [history] to memorize Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI," she explains. "We're studying this because we can see this happening in the current-day political climate."

Morey encourages students to bring in examples of articles from today's news that don't ring true.

"Once you expose it to them," she says, "it's like a game for them, seeing, 'Hey, I'm not sure I can trust this.' "
Extra layers
For 13 years, Larry Ferlazzo has been teaching kids who are learning English how to read and write. Now, he's adding another layer: helping them figure out if what they're reading is true.

Ferlazzo teaches at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif. He's also a blogger and journalist.

Last month, he wrote a lesson plan on addressing fake news to English language learners (ELLs), which was published in The New York Times.

He says media literacy is especially important for ELLs for two reasons. First, they're not fluent in the language they're reading, adding an extra level of difficulty in deciding what to believe. On top of that, false or exaggerated news about immigration could have a major impact on their lives.

His lesson starts off with a few examples of reliable and fake news. Then, some basic journalism stuff: Students identify the different parts of the news, from the "lede" to quotations. They enter all that into a diagram on paper so they have a visual representation of what they're reading.

That diagram eventually becomes a guide for students to write their own fake news lede that they can share with other classmates or post on a class blog.
Media consumers and contributors
In 2015, Spencer Brayton and his colleague Natasha Casey revamped a media literacy course for students at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Ill. Brayton says the key is the critical approach.

"Students come in expecting that we're going to lecture," Brayton explains. "But we have them think about certain power structures in how information is produced and how it reaches them. If they're going to understand how they're going to take it in, then they have to know how the news is going to be produced."

To take the class, students need a Twitter account. From the very first week, they are asked to follow five to 10 accounts on Twitter that promote media and information literacy, like Media Literacy Now or Renee Hobbs.

As they follow these posts and add additional ones, the goal is that they'll start to recognize fake news and other biases or viewpoints in media.

By the end of the course, Brayton says students begin to see themselves not only as creators of information, but as credible sources of information too.

The Twitter assignments encourage his students to engage with social media - retweeting, following and commenting - which Brayton says helps his students see how they play a role in spreading information to other media consumers. That means they have to take what they share more seriously.

"In looking at this issue, people seem to want a quick solution to fake news, but I'm not sure there is a solution (at least an easy one)," Brayton writes in an email. "Students need to recognize that these skills and ideas need to stay with them through adulthood, but that's easier said than done - we all fall into this trap."

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As the national attention to fake news and the debate over what to do about it continue, one place many are looking for solutions is in the classroom. Since a recent Stanford study showed that students at practically all grade levels can't determine fake news from the real stuff, the push to teach media literacy has gained new momentum.

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News Sources Bias 12/2016
by Vanessa Otero Her explanation here: http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/?p=65

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Post with 4590 votes and 3922741 views. Tagged with The More You Know; Shared by WildYucatanMan. Fight Fake news. Know who is reputable.

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Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world 11/2016 BY JOYCE VALENZA

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We were guaranteed a free press, We were not guaranteed a neutral or a true press. We can celebrate the journalistic freedom to publish without interference from the state. We can also celebrate our freedom to share multiple stories through multiple lenses.

But it has always been up to the reader or viewer to make the reliability and credibility decisions. It is up to the reader or viewer to negotiate truth.

News literacy is complicated. In our attempts to discern truth, we are confounded by a 24/7 news cycle. News hits us across media platforms and devices, in a landscape populated by all degrees of professional journalists and citizen journalists and satirists and hoaxers and folks paid or personally moved to write intentionally fake news. All of this is compounded by the glories and the drawbacks of user-generated content, citizen journalism, and a world of new news choices.

Professional journalists themselves face new practical and ethical challenges relating to anonymity, privacy and safety, as well as reliability in their attempts to verify sources of breaking news from social media and user-generated content in all media formats. (The Verification Handbooks are a wonderful lens into this complicated process.) The Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics lists four guiding principles; the first of which is seek truth and report it.

Even news that is vetted by editors and publishers sometimes emerges from that process a bit processed, perhaps leaning in a particular direction.

And word choice itself is connected to truth. Over the course of the last decade we've seen professional news organizations and governments struggle with the politics and potential loadedness of words, notably terrorist and illegal immigrant. (See the AP Stylebook Blog and Reuters Handbook of Journalism.)
On news literacy
In its glossary, Stony Brook University's Center for News Literacy defines news literacy as:

The ability to use critical thinking skills to judge the reliability and credibility of news reports, whether they come via print, television or the Internet.

Our kids need new types of filters. Beyond larger notions of information literacy, I see the case for a specific focus on news literacy. Not as a lesson of good vs. bad. Not as an attempt to pitch traditional media against social media or peer review against popular publication. Not through the examination of hoaky hoax sites. And certainly not as a one-of, checklist type of lesson for a 9th grade social studies teacher in September.

We need to teach the important lessons of everyday civics for new consumption and production landscapes. These lessons involve sustained critical thinking, a practice to engage in regularly as we read and view and inquire with learners of all ages acros s disciplines.

A recent Stanford Graduate School of Education report, Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Literacy assessed the news literacy of students from middle school through college.

Students were asked to perform such tasks as: determine the trustworthiness of tweets, distinguish between news articles and opinion columns, identify ads on a news website, compare and evaluate posts from a newspaper's comment section, identify the blue checkmark that distinguishes a verified Facebook account from a fake one, consider the relative strength of evidence presented by two posters in a Facebook exchange, decide whether or not to trust a photo on a photo-sharing website, determine whether a website can be trusted in an open web search, search to verify a claim about a controversial issue, assess the reliability of a partisan website, identify the strengths and weaknesses of an online video. (p. 6) (Note: Most of these tasks could authentically be taught in our libraries during the natural course of any inquiry project.)

The Executive Summary shared disturbing results:

By high school, we would hope that students reading about gun laws would notice that a chart came from a gun owners' political action committee. And, in 2016, we would hope college students, who spend hours each day online, would look beyond a .org URL and ask who's behind a site that presents only one side of a contentious issue. But in every case and at every level, we were taken aback by students' lack of preparation . . .

Never have we had so much information at our fingertips. Whether this bounty will make us smarter and better informed or more ignorant and narrow-minded will depend on our awareness of this problem and our educational response to it. At present, we worry that democracy is threatened by the ease at which disinformation about civic issues is allowed to spread and flourish. (pp. 5-6)

I see a serious need for librarians to build a few seaworthy arks from the news media flood to aid students in discerning credibility, reliability, and bias in context of their information needs and the context of the text itself. I can see us introducing the broad notion of triangulation to children for whom the word may be difficult to say.
What's going on? Fake news
In the weeks leading up to the election we were drawn to stories about Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump and WikiLeaks' confirmation that Hillary Clinton sold weapons to ISIS.

Fake news is not new. But its potential for virality is and our awareness of it is newly awakened. Some suggested it played a role in the outcome of the election. Google and Facebook both announced that they would try to eliminate fake news from appearing in their result lists and newsfeeds by blocking fake news sources from using their ad networks.

This video TEDEd by Damon Brown offers a student-friendly explanation as well as strategies for analyzing news sources:

And fake news is but one flavor of news that is less than accurate. It is but one bucket into which readers and viewers should sort types of truthiness.

Fake news itself comes in a variety of flavors:

Pure fake news sites use fabricated stories to lure traffic, encourage clicks (click bait), influence or profit using intentionally deceptive, but highly intriguing, often sensational information.

Hoax sites also share false information with the intention to trick readers/viewers

Satirical sites present news with a comical, often exaggerated spin

Born digital images and edited images alter and often misrepresent visual reality

In addition, sometimes journalists just get things wrong. Their sources they choose to interview may not offer truth or a full picture. Stories reported in process lack the wisdom of hindsight and may be missing full context.
Post-truth or truthiness
Oxford Dictionaries recently announced post-truth as its 2016 international Word of the Year. Oxford defines the word as relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.

It is well worth noting that the concept is not new. Oxford traces post-truth's history from a peripheral term simmering for at least a decade to its dramatic spike this year: in the context of the Brexit referendum in the UK and the presidential election in the US, and becoming associated overwhelmingly with a particu lar noun, in the phrase "post-truth politics."

Back in 2005, Stephen Colbert introduced the Word truthiness, now defined by Wikipedia as a quality characterizing a "truth" that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively "from the gut" or because it "feels right" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

While we need to reject the notion of relying solely on from-the-gut verification systems, it is important to recognize that we are not always looking at a binary situation.

Credibility decisions are complicated. Most news is not simply fake or true. News from traditional sources can be suspect as well. Professional journalists engage in rigorous fact-checking and adhere to sets of professional ethics, but they are not entirely immune to bias or agenda or the pressures of a deadline. A single story may tell a part of a larger story at the moment of its publishing. Of course, traditional newspapers feature writing of all sorts-straight reporting, editorials, features, columns, advertisements and comments in their digital versions. Several traditional news sources are to various degrees either right or left leaning. While some admit their bias, others do not.

It is impossible to dismiss the complication that our political news consumption habits have shifted. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and Tumblr played huge roles in disseminating political information during the past election season. A May 2016 Pew Research Center study found that a majority of U.S. adults - 62% - get news on social media, and 18% do so often. In terms of the total population, this translates to social media news reaching 67% of U.S. adults. The two-thirds of Facebook users who get news there, then, amount to 44% of the general population. Consider this results of this report in the context of with the decline of the newspaper industry also documented by recent Pew Research Center data.

Some Rules of thumb:

Check About and About me pages: Clicking on or investigate authors names to consider their credentials in context should be a regular part of the research journey. (See other tricks below.)

Interrogate urls: We see quite a bit of domain manipulation these days. For instance, what looks like an .edu domain, followed by .co or "lo" is likely a fake or deceptive site. If you are you seeing a slightly variant version of a well-known URL, do a little investigating.

Suspect the sensational: When we see something posted that looks sensational, it is even more important to be skeptical. Exaggerated and provocative headlines with excessive use of capital letters or emotional language are serious red flags.

Go back to the source: When an article mentions a study, if you can, go directly to the source and check its bona fides as well.

Go back to the story again (and again): When was the story written? What is its context? Breaking news will continue to break. Early reports are built from limited information so you'll want to watch a story grow into a fuller picture.

Think outside the reliability box: The old checklist-type tools we used to evaluate websites do not necessarily work. ACRL's Framework reminds us that the notion of reliability can be fluid. Experts know how to seek authoritative voices but also recognize that unlikely voices can be authoritative, depending on need. On Twitter's 10th birthday this year, Poynter, the respected journalism portal, listed 10 Twitter How Tos -guides for using Twitter for journalism from its own archive. Students can benefit from these tips too.

Triangulate: Try to verify or corroborate the information in multiple sources, including traditional media and library databases. You can begin to rule out the hoaxes by checking out sites like the nonprofit, nonpartisan FactCheck.org, or popular sites like Snopes or Hoax-Slayer.

What exactly are you reading?: Even when you find yourself in a traditional news site, identify what type of writing you are reading. Is it news reporting, or a feature story, or an editorial, or work by a guest blogger, or a review, or an op-ed or a disguised ad, or a comment?

Check your own search attitude and biases: Is your search language biased in any way? Are you paying more attention to the information that confirms your own beliefs and ignoring evidence that does not?

Use a little energy: Have you simply satisficed or have you done your due diligence in seeking and validating the best possible sources across media sources?

Stop before you forward (or use): When you see a widely shared or forwarded link, be suspicious of a hoax or a fake story. Can you verify the information outside of the social media platform on which you discovered it?

Be suspicious of pictures!: Not all photographs tell truth or unfiltered truth. Images are normally edited or process, but sometimes they are digitally manipulated. Some are born digital. A Google reverse image search can help discover the source of an image and its possible variations.

Remember Time Magazine's darkening of the OJ mugshot?

Remember Sandy?

Infographics are carefully constructed visual media messages. The data, the evidence, the sources, and the arguments they present beg careful deconstruction, scrutiny and analysis. (See my post.)
Some news literacy vocabulary to introduce in talking about credibility:

cloaked sites appear unbiased and professional but actually advocate on behalf of an organization or cause while concealing their true sources of funding and purpose.

confirmation bias: the tendency to believe information is credible if it conforms to the reader's/viewer's existing belief system, or not credible if it does not conform

container collapse: my own term for our trouble discerning the original information container, format or information type-blog, book, pamphlet, government document, chapter, magazine, newspaper, journal, or section of the newspaper or magazine or journal-once publishing cues are removed and every source looks like a digital page or a printout.

content farm or content mill: a company that employs a staff of freelance writers to create content designed to satisfy search engine retrieval algorithms with the goal of attracting views and advertising revenue.

In news media an echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an "enclosed" system, where different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresentedecho chamber: "." (Wikipedia)

fact checking: the act of verifying assertions either prior to publication or after dissemination of the content

filter bubble: When search tools present with the stories we are likely to click on or share based on our past activity, potentially affirming our biases, we need may be experiencing what Eli Pariser calls a filter bubble,

herding phenomenon: as more journalists begin to cover a story, even more journalists are likely to join the herd, imitating the angle the story initially took rather than developing alternate or original approaches or angles.

native advertising: paid, sponsored content designed to look like the legitimate content produced by the media outlet

satisficing: a portmanteau of the words satisfy and suffice introduced by Herbert Simon in 1956 to refer to the tendency of people, bounded by time limitations, to select good enough information over optimal information

sockpuppet: an online identify created to pose as a party unaffiliated with the media puppeteer in order to deceive.

triangulation or cross verification: Researchers establish validity by using several research methods and by analyzing and examining multiple perspectives and sources in the hope that diverse viewpoints will can shed greater light on a topic.

virality: the rapid circulation of media from one user to another. When we forward sensational stories, often from social media without checking their credibility in other sources, we increase their virality.

Resources for a post truth teaching toolkit:

ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: Authority Is Constructed and Contextual: Though aimed at university students, this important document reframes the way we consider authority and is well worth examining with high school students and faculty. The Framework recommends the following student dispositions:Learners who are developing their information literate abilities

develop and maintain an open mind when encountering varied and sometimes conflicting perspectives;

motivate themselves to find authoritative sources, recognizing that authority may be conferred or manifested in unexpected ways;

develop awareness of the importance of assessing content with a skeptical stance and with a self-awareness of their own biases and worldview;

question traditional notions of granting authority and recognize the value of diverse ideas and worldviews;

are conscious that maintaining these attitudes and actions requires frequent self-evaluation.

False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical "News" Sources: a dynamic Google Doc filled with tips from Melissa Zimdars, Assistant Professor of Communication and Media at Merrimack College.

The Center for News Literacy from Stony Brook University's School of Journalism, offers an impressive Digital Resources Center that includes

Ripped from the Headlines: Fresh news literacy lessons, based on the latest news, ready to use in class

Course Pack: organized around eight major concepts, the 14-module curriculum takes students from the first information revolution of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press to the Digital Age of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook. Each lesson stands alone or can easily be integrated into your program. Don't miss the very useful new Glossary.

Get a Global View: Instructional resources from the Center's international partners

DIY News Literacy Lessons: Inspiration and lessons templates for creating your own instruction around news literacy concepts.

News Literacy Project: Begun by an LA Times investigative reporter and supported by several newspapers and news organizations, the NLP is an innovative national education program that equips middle school and high school students with the tools to be smart, active consumers of news and information and engaged, informed citizens. Don't miss the four modules, lessons and Check Tool in the Checkology Virtual Classroom.

NewseumED: Learning tools on media literacy. Don't miss the Resources for Promoting Dialogue Post Election and Today's Front Pages

Center for Media Literacy: Dedicated to leadership, education and professional development, the pioneering CML offers a free Global OnRamp (in multiple languages) built around its research-based framework and five key questions for deconstructing and constructing media.

Media Education Lab: Teaching Resources: The University of Rhode Island's Harrington School of Communication and Media offers a wealth of resources. Don't miss Mind Over Media, a crowdsourced website that contains diverse examples of contemporary propaganda on a wide range of social, political, economic and environmental topics, as well as the six-lesson CCSS-aligned high school curriculum unit on contemporary propaganda.

Frank Baker's Media Literacy Clearinghouse: Don't miss the Media's Role in Politics

Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting: Aimed at professional journalists, but very useful for high school, this companion to the Verification Handbook for Emergency Coverage, which addresses breaking news, provides the fundamentals of online search and research techniques for investigations and takes a deeper into techniques for user generated content investigations

Time For Kids shares a video News Matters in which 6th graders discuss what they are learning about critical thinking and the news. critically about the information they come across.

Project CORA: Community of Online Research Assignments an open access resource for faculty and librarians

Fake News vs. Real News: Determining the Reliability of Sources NYTimes Learning Network

SchoolJournalism.org: News, Journalism and Media Literacy: This rich portal, administered by the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, contains a wealth of resources and suggested tools for teachers of journalism and the rest of us. Check out the interdisciplinary News Literacy Model Curriculum and Lesson Plans as well as the Six Principles of News Literacy

Teaching Information Literacy Now, from SLJ Librarian of the Year finalist, Laura Gardner

Fake 'News' in a 'Post-truth' World from reflection from Professor Judi Moreillon who shares: Fake "news" and a "post-truth" world call all school librarians to step up and lead

Resources for building a news literacy toolkit

FactCheck.org: Annenberg Public Policy Center's nonpartisan, nonprofit "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. Check out the post That Chain E-Mail Your Friend Sent to You is (Likely) Bogus. Seriously, for its Key Characteristics of Bogusness and the Viral Spiral page for claims previously checked

Washington Post's Fact Checker: The purpose of this Web site, and an accompanying column in the Sunday print edition of The Washington Post, is to "truth squad" the statements of political figures regarding issues of great importance, be they national, international or local.

PolitiFact.com: a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics, run by editors and reporters from the Tampa Bay Times. (Note: I discovered their truth-o-meter after I created the little image for this post.)

Snopes: Since way back in the 90s, Snopes has been dispelling urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.

Hoax-Slayer: Australian Brett Christensen has been debunking email and social media hoaxes and spam since 2003

Craig Silverman's BuzzFeed blog: The founding editor for BuzzFeed, Canada has been writing for many years for a variety of publications on media accuracy and verification issues.

Whois Lookup: This tool allows you to investigate the domain behind a website

CRAAP Test: Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose posted by the Meriam Library, California State University, Chico.

Kathy Schrock's 5W's of Website Evaluation

Does This Website Smell Funny to You? Amy Gillespie's FART test posted in Knowledge Quest will grab middle schoolers' attention

Evaluating Sources Using the RADAR Framework: RADAR stands for relevance, authority, date, relevance, rationale. Mandalios, J. (2013). RADAR: An approach for helping students evaluate Internet sources. Journal of Information Science, 39(4), 470-478.

Previous NeverEnding Search posts: Other favorite resources:

Abilock, Debbie. (2012). True-or not?. Educational Leadership, 69(6), 70-74. Debbie shares her quick and dirty rules of thumb-digital reading strategies, in fact-that will intrigue students, spark their curiosity, and serve as sensible entry points to more sophisticated analyses of ideas. Don't miss the section on Weighing Truths in Wikipedia.

Stanford History Education Group. (2016). Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Literacy.

Stebbins, Leslie F. (2015). Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth. Rowman & Littlefield.

Stevenson, Sara. (2016). Information Literacy Lessons Crucial in a Post Truth World. Knowledge Quest.
And finally . . .
Nurturing information literate, responsible, active citizens is what librarians do. There are no guarantees of truth from any source. We teach students to be discerning consumers of information. We teach them to deconstruct media messages and construct their own messages. We teach them to interrogate their sources. As the landscape continues to shift, librarians must update our own skill sets and toolkits to guide students in navigating a growingly nuanced universe of news. We must also examine and recognize our own biases so that we are open to contrary and conflicting ideas. This is our banner to wave, our curriculum to co-teach.

Of course, following the paths I've described for critical vetting of the news is work!

This is a new landscape from the one we taught in even five years ago. We need new compasses for navigation.

I do not believe we can stem the tide of fake news and truthiness and political memes and viral rumors and quick rushes to judgment. I do believe that together we can build a few arks.

Welcome to the brave new world of truth.

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Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a "post-truth" world - NeverEndingSearch

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We were guaranteed a free press, We were not guaranteed a neutral or a true press. We can celebrate the journalistic freedom to publish without interference from the state. We can also celebrate our freedom to share multiple stories through multiple lenses. But it has always been up to the reader or viewer to make [...]

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14 News Literacy Lessons by Stony Brook Univ 

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14 News Literacy Lessons by Stony Brook Univ 

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The full News Literacy course, developed at Stony Brook University, organizes the material into 8 concepts that are spread amongst our 14 week course that take students from the first information revolution of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press to the Digital Age of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook. Each lesson stands alone or can easily be integrated into your program.

Below, find a summary of each of those lessons, and a link to the most updated version of the teaching materials for each from our professors at Stony Brook University. Each of the following Course Packs include PowerPoint presentations, associated media, lecture notes, and recitation materials.

Our course structure changed in the Fall 2015 semester. The changes are outlined in our updated syllabus from that semester.

Lesson 1: Why News Literacy Matters

News Literacy Lesson 1 Course Pack - Updated SPRING 2016

In the wake of the latest information revolution, it is up to the consumer to determine whether information is reliable and whether to publish it.

Lesson 2: The Power of Information

Lesson 3: ...But is it True? Part 1

Journalists and scientists have a similar understanding of truth - a statement of probability that's proportional to the amount of available evidence and subject to an informal system of peer review.

The concept of provisional truth: Because journalism is a snapshot in time, journalistic truth evolves as new evidence emerges. The lesson for news consumers: Follow a story over time.

Context and transparency: Key concepts in the journey from fact to truth. Valuable news stories put information in context and are transparent about how reporters know what they know and don't know and why.

Truth is more likely to emerge when you look at a story from different perspectives. Journalists do that by trying to include the voices of all involved.

Lesson 4: But is it true? Part 2: Verification

Journalists pursue the truth by following a ranking of direct evidence that places the greatest value on photographs and videos, documents and records, personal observations and witnesses.

Seeing isn't always believing. News outlets and consumers must also verify the authenticity of visual journalism. How news organizations and consumers evaluate still images and videos.

Assessing the value of polls, surveys and studies. Understanding the science of polling and evaluating reports of scientific breakthroughs.

The battle between journalism's pursuit of the truth and digital-age business models: How the fight for page views, ratings and circulation can put journalistic values in peril.

Lesson 5: What Makes News Different?

Lesson 6: Fairness and Balance

Lesson 7: Who's Biased Now?

- Updated News Literacy Lesson 7 Course Pack Fall 2015

Lesson 8: Who Decides What's Newsworthy?

- Updated N ews Literacy Lesson 8 Course Pack Fall 2015

Lesson 9: The Medium is the Message

- Updated News Literacy Lesson 9 Course Pack Fall 2015

Newspapers and magazines still offer the most comprehensive coverage, but market forces, technological advances and demographic changes have dramatically reduced their resources and reach.

Radio has survived by maintaining an intimacy and immediacy and developing its own style of storytelling.

TV news is still the most powerful tool for following breaking news stories with compelling visuals, but it exists in an entertainment medium.

Lesson 10: The Medium is the Message - Part 2, Digital Media

N ews Literacy Lesson 10 Course Pack - Updated Spring 2015

News websites and search engines have broadened the reach of news consumers while presenting them with new challenges - information overload, questions of authenticity and confirmation bias - in their pursuit of reliable information. A key lesson: Ranking on search engines does not necessarily indicate the reliability of a website or piece of information found online.

The explosion of social media and the evolution of the news consumer from observer to news producer have brought not only a powerful level of engagement but also the proliferation of misinformation. Plus: How social media has been used in modern election campaigns.

Lesson 11: Says Who?

News Literacy Lesson 11 Course Pack - Updated Spring 2015

The decontruction process uses News Literacy concepts to analyze and dispassionately judge a report's reliability.

1. Summarize the main points: Do the headline and lead support them?

2. How close does the reporter come to opening the freezer? Is the evidence direct or indirect?

3. Evaluate the reliability of the sources using IMVAIN.

4. Is the reporter's work transparent? Does the reader learn what the reporter knows and does not know?

5. Does the reporter place the story in context, providing facts that surround an event or elements of a news story and provide meaning or significance?

6. Are the key questions answered? Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

7. Is the story fair?

Lesson 12: Deconstructing The News

News Literacy Lesson 12 Course Pack - Updated Spring 2015

This 7-step deconstruction process uses News Literacy concepts to analyze and dispassionately judge a report's reliability.

1. Summarize the main points and then check if the headline and the lead support the main point(s) of the story?
2. How close does the reporter come to opening the freezer? Is the evidence direct or "arm's-length?"
3. Evaluate the reliability of the sources using IMVAIN.
4. Does the reporter make his or her work transparent?
5. Does the reporter place the story in context?
6. Are the key questions answered?
7. Is the story fair?

Students apply the principles of deconstruction to all forms of traditional media including video and audio news stories.

For video news, we analyze a series of "winners" and "sinners" and how you can tell the difference.

Lesson 13: Deconstructing Social Media

Students learn to recognize the power and gauge the reliability of social media posts and websites

A key lesson: Ranking on search engines does not necessarily indicate the reliability of a website or piece of information found online.

The advent of crowdsourcing and "citizen journalists" has created new opportunities and challenges for both news outlets and news consumers.

Lesson 14: News Literate You -- The Future of News

In the Digital Age, we are all publishers as well as news consumers. And with great power, comes great responsibility.

The advent of crowdsourcing and "citizen journalists" has created new opportunities and challenges for both news outlets and news consumers.

The Internet's disruption of traditional journalism business models has raised a key question: Who will pay for watchdog journalism in the Digital Age?

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From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg in 14 Lessons

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The full News Literacy course, developed at Stony Brook University, organizes the material into 8 concepts that are spread amongst our 14 week course that take students from the first information revolution of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press to the Digital Age of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook.

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News Literacy Lesson Plan Template by Center for News Literacy

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News Literacy Lesson Plan Template by Center for News Literacy

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Participation in Government and EconomicsThroughNews Literacy by Janis SchachterRevised 8/15/12

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Participation in Government and EconomicsThroughNews Literacy by Janis SchachterRevised 8/15/12

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College Level Lessons

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9 Videos on News Literacy (edutopia)

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How can you help your students begin to separate fact from fiction in the news? This collection of videos and resources will get you started.

In our increasingly information-saturated society, it can be challenging for young people (or any of us!) to sort fact from fiction in journalism. We get news from all directions, at all times, on multiple channels; citizen reporting competes with major corporate conglomerates for our attention and our trust. As we get ready to celebrate News Engagement Day on October 6th, what can you do to help your students become more critical consumers of news media? The video playlist below should provide a good entry point to the discussion, and then you'll find some resources for digging deeper.

Video Playlist: Truth and The News

1. How to Choose Your News - Damon Brown (04:49)
This excellent video primer from TED-Ed explains how to find and consume your news thoughtfully and with the least chance of being manipulated. Visit the TED-Ed website for a full lesson that you can customize for your own classroom.

2. News Literacy at NYC's Intermediate School 303 (07:27)
The Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University considers itself the birthplace of the idea of news literacy. In this video, middle school kids in Coney Island learn to consume news responsibly, using curriculum the Center developed.

3. Why the News Isn't Really the News (02:22)
Self-proclaimed "media manipulator" Ryan Holiday, author of Trust Me, I'm Lying, reveals his trade secrets for getting false anonymous stories to the main page of major news outlets in this animated explainer by Epipheo. An excellent bonus video on the same topic is " How False News Can Spread," from TED-Ed.

4. Markham Nolan: How to Separate Fact and Fiction Online (13:30)
In this TED Talk, journalist Markham Nolan, managing editor at digital generation news outlet Vocativ, shares pro tips for how to verify information in real-time and how to sift for authenticity in the deluge.

5. News Literacy Is... (03:51)
A little low-fi, but earnest, this video from the News Literacy Project features teachers and students talking about why news literacy is valuable. The non-profit offers workshops that connect reporters to schools and resources for middle and high school teachers.

6. News Literacy Project Trains Young People to Be Skeptical Media Consumers (06:54)
PBS Newshour takes us inside classrooms where teachers are using curriculum developed by the News Literacy Project, including a high school in Bethesda, Maryland, and a middle school in Washington, DC.

7. Why News Matters (01:54)
This peppy graphic video from the McCormick Foundation makes a pitch for the value of news in our communities and explains why news literacy is a key skill to cultivate for an engaged citizenry. The Foundation offers resources for both students and teachers, and gives grants in Chicago.

8. Churnalism Tutorial (02:24)
Although this useful Web tool by the Sunlight Foundation has sadly been retired, and the website it was inspired by is on hiatus for lack of funding, I think the video is still worth a watch as it reminds us just how much of our news is based on repackaged press releases.

9. Not All Scientific Studies are Created Equal - David H. Schwartz (04:27)
Okay, I got a little TED-crazy in this playlist, but I can't ignore a great resource. This one zeroes in on the different kinds of scientific studies one hears about in the news, and it gives viewers some tools for scoping out their validity. See the full lesson on the TED-Ed website.

Watch the first video below, or watch the whole playlist on YouTube.

More Resources on News Literacy

I'm sure you're convinced at this point that our need for news literacy is ever-increasing as the volume of content we consume from all different sources grows. But it can be very difficult to teach and even harder to measure. I've gathered some teaching resources to help you get started. As always, chime in with your own questions, ideas, or favorite resources in the comments below.

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5-Minute Film Festival: 9 Videos on News Literacy

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How can you help your students begin to separate fact from fiction in the news? This collection of videos and resources will get you started. In our increasingly information-saturated society, it can be challenging for young people (or any of us!) to sort fact from fiction in journalism.

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In previous decades, most news with global reach came from several major newspapers and networks with the resources to gather information directly. The speed with which information spreads now, however, has created the ideal conditions for something called circular reporting. Noah Tavlin sheds light on this phenomenon.

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1. News Literacy teachers select a piece of news content like this Times article on climate change, for example. (The content should be appropriate for the students’ reading level.)

2. As students read the article, they highlight sources and the information attributed to them. They might use a blue pencil to mark the source’s name (e.g., Teresa Marks, director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality), and a green pencil to mark the information they provide (e.g., “This is not going to be the Armageddon that some people think”).

3. Then, they can determine how reliable each source is, and therefore the information attributed to her or him. Students can rate each source for reliability using the Imvain checklist (PDF).

4. The class can discuss which sources they think seem most reliable and why, and they can consider possible biases that sources might have, based on their job title or background. Then, armed with new insight gained from evidence analysis and source evaluation, they can discuss the complex issues raised in the article.

5. After practicing in the classroom, students might be challenged to apply this news judgment to things they read on their own, whether on the Internet, in a newspaper, via social media or anywhere else. Invite them to bring in examples of pieces that fail the Via or Imvain tests and explain why.

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As a follow-up to our post offering 50 ways to teach with current events, we asked Rory O'Connor, director of the Digital Resource Center at Stony Brook University's Center for News Literacy, to share practical ways to help students become savvy news consumers. - The Learning Network The Need for News Literacy
Instead of a limited number of "trusted" and "objective" news sources, like the familiar network anchors, we now have an almost limitless number of outlets on the Internet and TV. In fact, anyone can publish a blog or tweet. With that democratization of news production and consumption comes an even greater responsibility for all of us to become savvy news consumers. Teaching students lifelong news literacy skills seems more important than ever.

"News Literacy" is an emerging discipline that empowers students to use analytical thinking skills to judge the reliability and credibility of news reports and information sources. It asks teachers to "reinvent current events" so that learning about the news goes beyond expanding awareness of events and becomes a real-world critical-thinking activity.
How One School Teaches It
Using an approach acquired from the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University, and after training at the center's summer institutes, the principal and staff at Intermediate School 303, a New York City public middle school in Coney Island, Brooklyn, implemented a program to encourage students to become smarter readers and analysts.

In its curriculum, the school stresses concepts like the need to evaluate information and sources. Each week the sixth, seventh and eighth graders at I.S. 303 study the concepts and learn how to apply them to current stories in the news.

Sometimes they use free educational media materials like these, created and distributed for classroom use by Stony Brook and often featuring journalists and reporting from The New York Times.

The lessons are then shared more broadly throughout E.L.A., Social Studies and other courses - as well as at home with parents, siblings and friends.
Learning Tools to Empower Students
Among the techniques pioneered by the center and in use at I.S. 303 is the use of simple mnemonics like "Via" (the triad of values that characterize reliable information: product of a verification process, from an independent person who is accountable) and "Imvain" (good journalism rests on sources who are independent, multiple, verified, authoritative, informed and named).

Here's how it can work in the classroom:

1. News Literacy teachers select a piece of news content like this Times article on climate change, for example. (The content should be appropriate for the students' reading level.)

2. As students read the article, they highlight sources and the information attributed to them. They might use a blue pencil to mark the source's name (e.g., Teresa Marks, director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality), and a green pencil to mark the information they provide (e.g., "This is not going to be the Armageddon that some people think").

3. Then, they can determine how reliable each source is, and therefore the information attributed to her or him. Students can rate each source for reliability using the Imvain checklist (PDF).

4. The class can discuss which sources they think seem most reliable and why, and they can consider possible biases that sources might have, based on their job title or background. Then, armed with new insight gained from evidence analysis and source evaluation, they can discuss the complex issues raised in the article.

5. After practicing in the classroom, students might be challenged to apply this news judgment to things they read on their own, whether on the Internet, in a newspaper, via social media or anywhere else. Invite them to bring in examples of pieces that fail the Via or Imvain tests and explain why.

As students work, have them keep in mind that:

Independent sources are preferable to self-interested sources.

Multiple sources are preferable to a report based on a single source.

Sources who Verify or provide verifiable information are preferable to those who merely assert.

Authoritative and/or Informed sources are preferable to sources who are uninformed or lack authoritative background.

Named sources are better than anonymous ones.

How News Literacy Fits in the Curriculum
Carmen Amador, principal at I.S. 303, explains the school's decision to integrate News Literacy into its curriculum: "We're proving to a lot of middle schools that our students can delve into these articles, they can interpret, they can become meta-cognitive and understand what is going on. Before News Literacy, they really couldn't tell you what was happening in their communities or the world at large. Now they're talking to you about the latest news reports, and why they believe or don't believe them."

News literacy has become a crucial information-age skill set for all of us - but especially young people. It helps determine how we know what we know, who will decide what we think, and how we can make convincing and credible arguments to others. And its emphasis on source evaluation and evidence analysis aligns with both the Common Core standards and the new "C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards."

As Ms. Amador states in the video, teaching news literacy both creates an awareness of current events within the school and develops children into critical thinkers.

How do you teach news literacy? Tell us below.

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Guest Post | Practical Tools for Teaching News Literacy

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As a follow-up to our post offering 50 ways to teach with current events, we asked Rory O'Connor, director of the Digital Resource Center at Stony Brook University's Center for News Literacy, to share practical ways to help students become savvy news consumers.

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Fake Viral Images (some content not appropriate for students)

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Fake Viral Images (some content not appropriate for students)

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We debunked dozens of fake photos this year, covering everything from Charles Manson's baby photos to John Lennon's skateboarding skills, and everything in between. It was another busy year for anyone spreading fake images on the internet.

Below, we have 76 photos that you may have seen floating around the internet in 2015. Some are deliberate photoshops created by people who want to deceive. Others are just images that got mixed up in this big, weird game of Telephone we call the internet.

If you get to the bottom of the list and you're hungry for even more fakes, check out last year's round-up.

1) Is this Charles Manson as a baby?

Despite what historical picture accounts on Twitter might insist, this isn't Charles Manson as a baby. I contacted Jeff Guin, author of the definitive biography, Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson. He said that it's almost certainly not him.

From Guinn:

While I was researching my book, Manson's sister and first cousin shared family photo albums with me. That photo was not present in either instance, and in no way matches the verified photos I have of Manson as a baby. (The facial features above all.) I have never seen this picture before. Anything's possible, but I very much doubt that this is a photo of Baby Charlie.

My guess? This one likely started as a joke on Facebook or Reddit and spread quickly as a real photo after losing context from the original poster.

2) Is this a behind the scenes photo from National Geographic?

It's an amusing photo. But that image of National Geographic photographers running from a bear has definitely been photoshopped.

As commenters on Reddit point out, there are actually a few clues that this is a fake. But the most damning bit of evidence? The bear appears to be from a stock photo.

Below, a side-by-side of the image with the stock photo. Notice the shape of the bear's head and the green piece of grass in front of the bear's right arm.
The redhead in the photo, Tim Sparks, has confirmed via Twitter that it's a fake that they made back in 2011 during a film location scout in Colorado. He says it was posted to Facebook and it went viral from there. I spoke with him for a follow-up.
3) Is this an old magic trick gone wrong?

With a caption like "magic trick gone wrong," it's easy to imagine the photos above as depicting a magician nearly escaping from drowning. We're left to think a scantily clad performer heroically grabbed an ax and freed a grateful woman. The problem? That's not what these pictures show at all. And in fact, the real story is far more interesting.

The woman with the ax, Kitty West (also known as Evangeline the Oyster Girl), smashed the glass box in rage. West was a burlesque performer on Bourbon Street in New Orleans during the late 1940s. Her act included emerging from an enormous oyster shell, thus the name Oyster Girl. One night in 1949 a rival performer from out of town, Divena the Aqua Tease, got top billing over West, which seemed to really upset her. Divena's act involved an underwater strip tease in a giant glass case filled with water. So you can see where this is going.

"I just wanted to break the tank in a million pieces," West would later recall. Life magazine reported that 400 gallons of water poured onto the stage, causing many in the audience to flee. Once the water had drained, West attacked Divena by pulling her hair. West was promptly arrested, and the whole thing (complete with photos of West at the police station) was published in Life.

4) Is this Princess Diana giving the finger?

No, that's not Princess Di flipping the bird. It's another photo by Alison Jackson, a British photographer known for her staged images of celebrity lookalikes.

Historical photo accounts on Twitter are constantly posting Jackson's images. Twitter is littered with countless Marilyn Monroe and JFK images that are actually Jackson's handiwork using lookalikes. Throw this one on the pile.

5) Is this a photo from NASA of India during Diwali?

As the space debunker FakeAstroPix points out, this "NASA photo" of India during the Hindu festival of Diwali is fake. It's actually quite an old fake as well, dating to at least 2012. But that doesn't stop so many OMGSPACE and OMGSCIENCE Twitter accounts from sharing it here in 2015.

What does it really show? It's a composite of satellite images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2003 that has been shaded different colors. The different colors are supposed to show population growth over time. Cool image? Sure. But not what so many people say it is.

6) Is this an anti-weed ad?

No, this isn't an anti-drug ad. it's actually a photo by Martin Ferko of Anna Guimm, a designer whose method of creating ceramic dolls involves putting them in an oven. Someone has photoshopped anti-weed messaging onto the image.

Normally, this kind of thing would be done in a kiln, but Guimm's DIY oven method seems to work perfectly fine for her. Even if it makes for a terrifying image when taken out of context.

And before you rush down to the comments to let me know that nobody thought this was a real ad, allow me to assure you that there is always someone who thinks it's a real ad.

7) Is this a 1950s car show?

The photo above does come from a car show that took place at a Thrifty Drug store parking lot in Los Angeles on May 15, 1954. But it's not exactly as it would've appeared to people who were actually there.

The photo was colorized by Rik Hoving back in 2006, though the HistoryInPics version crops out mention of his name. Colorized photos aren't necessarily "fake." But as I've said before, we have to ask ourselves what happens to history when a colorized photo supplants the original in web searches.

HistoryInPics often tweets colorized photos without identifying them as such. To be honest, this seems like a rather minor sin compared with all the other misinformation they spread. But it's something that we need to keep in mind with all these historical photo accounts.

Who decides that the green car is actually green and not blue or black or even purple? Photo colorizers are often dedicated people who painstakingly research possibilities before altering historical documents. But when their work is shared without any mention that the photo has been colorized, the people of the future are left with a rather skewed impression of history.

8) Is this a shooting star and its reflection?

As the always excellent Twitter photo sleuth PicPedant points out, the picture above isn't a shooting star. It's actually a 2-minute long exposure of a space shuttle launch in 2010. By leaving the camera's shutter open for 2 minutes, the launch appears to be a long fiery trail. But it's most definitely not a shooting star.

9) Is this a kitchen chair floating in space, referred to as "Escape Vehicle No. 6" by astronauts?

Could there really be a kitchen chair in orbit? No. This image comes from a 2009 ad campaign by Toshiba for LCD TVs. Sadly, there is no chair currently circling the globe.

The title "Escape Vehicle No. 6" comes from a 2004 art piece by Simon Faithfull that was similar in concept. Faithful says that Toshiba's ad agency approached him about a collaboration but he didn't work on the ad.
Fake image via HistoricalPics and SciencePorn
10) Is this an "incredibly rare" black lion?

No, there are no black lions. As the Museum of Hoaxes points out, this is a pure photoshop job. The original photo shows that the lion is actually white.

11) Is this an 1880s female street gang from London called the Clockwork Oranges?

Those are some dapper looking women who might rough you up if you met them in a dark alley. But whoever they were, they weren't an 1880s female street gang called the Clockwork Oranges.

There were indeed female street gangs in 19th century London. But the term Clockwork Orange wasn't used in reference to a street gang until Anthony Burgess's 1962 book. According to Burgess, the book gets its title from an old cockney slang phrase "as queer as a clockwork orange."

As the caption to the obviously cropped photograph reads: "group of women having a smoke, gelatin silver print c. 1896."
Fake image via OldPicsArchive and the Victorian Academy of Magick
12) Is this really Einstein riding a bicycle near a nuclear test?

This photo may seem like one of those that's so absurd, no one could ever believe it deals. But people do. And they keep sharing it far and wide across social media. Like a cockroach scurrying around during Nuclear Winter, the image just won't die. But yes, it's a fake.

13) Is this scientist Marie Curie?

No, that's not the world renowned scientist Marie Curie. As Joe Hanson from PBS points out, the photo on the left actually shows Susan Marie Frontczak, a stage performer who plays Marie Curie in a production called Manya. The real photo of Curie circa 1913 appears on the right.

Embarrassingly it's not just spammy Twitter accounts that have mistaken the actor for the real Curie. The country of Togo even based a postage stamp on the photo of Frontczak. Yikes.

14) Is this Vladimir Putin in 1988 posing as a tourist to spy on Ronald Reagan?

Everybody knows that Vladimir Putin is a former KGB agent. But is that actually Putin in 1988 posing as a tourist behind the boy that's about to shake Ronald Reagan's hand? Nope.

This fake has been around for a few years now. And to be honest, the guy doesn't even look like Putin if you ask me. Now it's entirely possible that the guy is an undercover KGB agent. The photographer who took this shot seems to think so. But Putin was stationed in Dresden when this photo was snapped in Moscow. It's almost certainly not Putin.

15) Is this Heath Ledger as The Joker kick-flipping over Batman?

Notoriously awful Twitter account HistoryInPics posts a lot of fake content. And sadly they don't even tell the truth when their "history" is a recent as 2008.

No, that's not Heath Ledger on the set of The Dark Knight kick-flipping over Christian Bale. The funny part? Ledger was actually known for skating around on location while shooting in Chicago. But the photo above is totally fake.
Fake image via HistoryInPics
16) Is this a group of prohibitionist women?

Ever wonder why everyone in this "prohibitionist photo" has such a cartoonish expression? Because they were actors. This image actually comes from an old Thomas Edison film made sometime between 1893 and 1901.

Edison's early films often parodied suffragists and women of the temperance movement during the late 19th century. This pro-temperance message wouldn't have been out of place in some circles at the turn of the 20th century. But it's an image that was meant to lampoon the anti-alcohol movement. And it appears that it's still working over a century later.
Fake image via OldPicsArchive
17) Is this Salvador Dali drawing a penis on a woman's forehead?

Salvador Dali never painted a cartoon penis on a woman's forehead, signing it Picasso. Or at least if he did, it was never photographed. The woman in the photo is Dali's wife Gala and the painting he's doing is known as Medusa's sleep.

18) Is this a rare photo of an Onna-bugeisha, one of the female warriors of Japan?

No, this photo doesn't show a female warrior from 1870s Japan. As the debunker website Hoax of Fame explains, the image actually shows a kabuki actor. This photo went up for auction back in 2012.
Inaccurate photo description via ThatsHistory
19) Is this a hockey goalie in 1966 before masks became standard equipment?

As the always brilliant PicPedant points out, this photo indeed appeared in the pages of Life magazine in 1966. But the scars and wounds of this hockey goalie were applied by a make-up artist. They were intended to represent all the injuries this hockey player received during his career.

As L ife explained in 1966:

This face belongs to Terry Sawchuk [wrote LIFE], a 36-year-old goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Re-created here, by a professional make-up artist and a doctor, are some of the more than 400 stitches he has earned during 16 years in the National Hockey League. Sawchuk has sustained other injuries not shown here: a slashed eyeball requiring three stitches, a 70% loss of function in his right arm because 60 bone chips were removed from his elbow, and a permanent "sway-back" caused by continual bent-over posture.

So yeah, it's kinda real. But the photo tells a misleading story when you strip out the context from the magazine and add your own caption about safety equipment.

20) Is this an Earthrise from the perspective of the moon on December 24, 1968?

On December 24, 1968 the astronauts of Apollo 8 took a gorgeous shot of the "earth rise" as came from the dark side of the moon. It was the first photo of our planet from the perspective of another planetary body. In 2013 NASA produced a computer-generated re-creation of what those astronauts saw, in full color. But ever since, people have been passing the re-creation around as an authentic photo. The original is the black and white photo on the right.
Fake image via HistoricalPics
21) Is this the bodies of two people in Nevada thought to be buried alive in 1993?

These aren't the bodies of two people horrifically buried alive in the 1990s. They're actually the bones of two people found outside Mantua, Italy back in 2007. And the bones date back as much as 6,000 years.

The two people are thought to have been no more than 20 years old and were deemed the Lovers of Valdaro because they were found locked in an embrace. We don't know how they met their end exactly. But the one thing we know for sure is that they weren't buried alive in the Nevada desert during the Clinton administration.
Fake image via NotExplained
22) Is this a real screenshot from Wheel of Fortune?

You may have seen this Wheel of Fortune screenshot gag going viral recently. Is the answer really "Luck Be In the Air Tonight"? Nope. It's just a photoshop job from start to finish.

The big clue that this one is fake? If the answer is really supposed to be "Luck Be In The Air Tonight," then why is the letter I missing from the word "air"? The only logical explanation? The answer must be the lewd one everybody was thinking.
Fake image via jmoneytooreal
23) Are these real penguins with donated sweaters?

You may have recently seen the heartwarming story of Australia's oldest man (109 years young!) who knits sweaters for penguins. The story is currently making the rounds with an adorable photo purporting to show the grateful penguins of Australia's Phillip Island. The only problem? Those penguins in that particular photo are totally fake.

The photo comes from the Penguin Foundation's Facebook page. As they explained in the comments to the photo when questioned about the fake-looking birds:

We had a little help from some toy penguins, Jenny. Our photographer tells us they're the best models he's ever worked with - no demands for water that's been purified by unicorns in Peru and minimal make-up required because they're all naturally good looking. Plus, we're all about positive body image and welcome toy penguin models of all shapes and sizes!

So there you have it. The other thing that the aggregated and regurgitated stories scraping the original (and true!) story from Nine News don't mention? The penguins don't really need sweaters anymore. Sweaters were originally used on penguins after a 2000 oil spill. They kept the birds from preening themselves and potentially ingesting oil before they could be properly cleaned. Many people jumped at the chance to help, but pretty soon, the clean-up organizations had more penguin-sized sweaters than they would ever need.

There was another call for penguin sweaters in 2014 by the Penguin Foundation to stockpile in case another oil spill ever happened. But, again, they were quickly inundated with more sweaters than they could handle.

As the Penguin Foundation noted after the outpouring of sweaters (known as "jumpers" in Australia), they don't need any more:

** Please note that we have plenty of penguin jumpers at this time donated by generous knitters across the globe for rehabilitation in the event of an oil spill, fundraising and education programs and do not need any further donations at this time. Thank you kindly for your interest in knitting to support the little penguins of Phliip Island! Further information on the program and how penguin jumpers benefit little penguin conservation can be found below. Thank you! **

To be clear, the story of Australia's oldest man and his earlier efforts to make knit sweaters is totally real. But that photo and the impression that this is an ongoing need is simply not true.

24) Are these school lunches from around the world?

They look pretty delicious, but those "typical" school lunches from around the world aren't so typical. They're actually misleading promotional photos from an advertising campaign for a health food store called SweetGreen.

As Mother Jones points out, the photo purporting to show a typical school lunch in Greece should have been a big red flag. Sadly, given the country's financial woes, Greece doesn't have the resources to provide the kind of meal pictured. They point to an article in the New York Times that explains schools in Greece, "do not offer subsidized cafeteria lunches. Students bring their own food or buy items from a canteen."

This isn't to say that American public schools aren't woefully lacking in nutrition compared with much of the industrialized world. But these staged photos are far from an honest depiction. SweetGreen updated their post to admit nearly as much, even if they hedged in the process: "These images are not intended to be exact representations of school lunches, but instead, are meant to portray different types of foods found in cafeterias around the world."

25) Is this a whale swimming through Venice?

No, that's not a whale making its way through the canals of Venice. It's actually a composite image by artist Robert Jahns, who's responsible for another famous viral fake involving Venice freezing over. It's a cool picture, but not a true one.
Fake photo via SundayFundayz
26) Are these the tallest mountains on earth as seen from space?

As Twitter user Janne Ahlberg mentions, the image is actually completely computer generated. It was created by Christoph Hormann back in 2006. And to be honest, the more I look at it the more I want to play Myst.
Fake image via BEAUTIFULPlCS
27) Is this a whisky vending machine in a 1960s office?

Yes, that's a whisky dispenser. But it's not from an office in the 1950s or 60s, as it's so often captioned. According to Getty, it's from a vending machine exhibition in London in 1960. We don't have any evidence that this machine was used in an office, no matter how badly we want to believe that's the case.

Thanks to shows like Mad Men, people here in the 21st century have a tendency to think that everybody in the offices of the 1960s were constantly hammered. And while drinking on the job was more socially acceptable than it is today (at least for white collar workers at the highest ranks of companies), the people of the 1960s weren't constantly drinking.
Inaccurate description via Imgur
28) Is this a creepy passageway in an abandoned church?

Nope. As one Reddit user explains, the image actually comes from a house called the Black Moon Manor in Indiana. The Travel Channel show Ghost Adventures "investigated" the house back in 2011. The image above only gets a passing glance on screen, probably because if you think too hard about how over the top the image is, you'll conclude it's all bullshit. (Which it is.)

The funny part? Even within the paranormal investigation community, Black Moon Manor was known to be a fraud. The man in the episode who claims to be the owner of the house was actually just leasing it to run a haunted house. The backstory they tell in the show (of a shady doctor from the early 20th century who conducted experiments on measles patients) is total bullshit.

The writing on the wall around the hole was clearly done by regular old contemporary humans looking to get a rise out of people. The Black Moon Manor house was destroyed in 2012, the year after the episode aired.

On an unrelated (but hilarious) note, my favorite thing about the episode is when the host of the show steps into a local library and says, "I really don't think I've been in a library since grade school."
Fake image via NotExplained
29) Is this a rare color photo of the attack on Pearl Harbor?

PicPedant sets the record straight, explaining that the photo actually comes from a publicity still from the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor. That's right. The one with Ben Affleck.
Fake photo via KnowFactsDaily
30) Is this an Alaskan Tree Frog?

As Hoax of Fame points out, there's actually no such thing as an Alaskan Tree Frog. The image is quite clearly a cartoonish frog on top of what I'm guessing is a stone heart. Frustratingly, I can't seem to find an example online. But I'm almost certain I've seen this one (in its non-frozen form) before. If you know where this frog comes from please let us know in the comments.
Fake photo via FascinatingPics
31) Is this the full moon as seen from Australia?

Australia is a gorgeous country, filled with cute animals, gorgeous sunsets, and stunning night skies. But this photo purporting to be a full moon in Australia is a bunch of hooey. (Please excuse my strong language.)

Now, I know what you're thinking: Who in their right mind would believe this was real? The answer? The over 1,000 people who retweeted the image. And plenty more, as it has made its way through Pinterest and Facebook.
Fake image via SpacePornx
32) Are these Ewoks in owl form?

These "owls" might be cute, but they're not real. They're adorable toys, made by Russian artist Marina Yamkovskaia. And for what it's worth, they definitely look more Labyrinth to me than Star Wars.

33) Is this Time magazine's definition of a perfect body in 1955?

No, the photos above aren't from 1955. And they weren't Time magazine's definition of a "perfect body." As Snopes points out, the photo actually shows adult film star Aria Giovanni in a photo taken in 2004. The photo is currently going viral in its black and white form, perhaps to make it seem more vintage.

The "perfect body of X year" has actually turned into quite the meme. It's usually meant to be empowering for women and a reminder that the cliched aspiration to achieve the body type of rail-thin models isn't the norm - or at least hasn't been through most of history.

But in this case it's hard to see this as necessarily empowering for women in any real capacity. It's quite literally a porn star, and this particular version of the meme was almost certainly started by trolls.
Fake photo via History_Pics
34) Is this a tree growing through an abandoned piano?

No, a tree didn't grow its way through an abandoned piano. This photo was taken by a Flickr user back in 2010, and as Twitter user Janne Ahlberg points out, the piano was placed there by an artist named Jeff.

Jeff, for what it's worth, sounds a bit unstable. He explains in a video about how he got the free piano and then started "talking" to the trees for permission to place the piano in the woods:

I was gonna do different stuff with the piano. And then I was going around and I started talking to some trees, and basically found that one tree that would fit perfectly - that wanted the piano. So as soon as that tree kinda gave me permission to do that I kinda went ahead and did it.

Um, sure Jeff.

35) Is this Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson posing together as the Joker?

Well, no, that's not Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson. They're action figures. Really well done action figures, I'll grant you. But action figures nonetheless.

36) Is this Martin Luther King Jr. flipping the bird?

No matter how many times this photo of Martin Luther King Jr. is debunked, it always seems to pop up again and again on sites like Imgur, Reddit, and Pinterest. It's a photoshop job.

The real photo (on the right) actually shows King reacting in St. Augustine, Florida, after learning that the Senate had passed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. He's holding up two fingers, not one.
Fake photo via Pinterest; Imgur
37) Is this Shanghai in 1987 and 2015, after "26 years"?

Yes, that top photo does show Shanghai in 1987. But the bottom photo is from 2013, not 2015. It's a relatively minor factual error, but it reveals the sloppiness of these "historical pics" accounts. The vast majority just scrape photos from Reddit and Imgur. And in this case they were savvy enough to know that the current year would garner more shares. But not savvy enough to know that they'd have to change the math to alter it from 26 years to 28 years.
Inaccurate description via HistoricalPics
38) Is this Paris Hilton wearing a shirt that says "Stop Being Poor"?

Recently an Imgur set of wealthy famous people saying terrible things made the front page. The top image shows Paris Hilton (remember her?) wearing a shirt that says "Stop Being Poor." As easy as it might be to believe, it's actually a photoshop job.

The photo was taken in 2005 and her shirt actually says "Stop Being Desperate." Hilton may have spent her entire career trying to instigate a class war, but she didn't do it by wearing a shirt imploring people not to be poor.

39) Is this a supermoon in Dubai?

Close, but the photo on the left is actually photoshopped. As PicPedant points out, the original photo was taken by Mo Aoun and shows the moon off to the side. The moon in the altered photo is also larger than the original. This seems to be a case of people taking something beautiful and making it literally unbelievable.
Fake photo via AstronomyHD
40) Is this a megalodon shark next to a German U-Boat in the 1940s?

Remember that dumb megalodon documentary released by the Discovery Channel for Shark Week back in 2014? It was completely fake. But something tells me that we'll be living with the fake facts peddled by that show for many years to come. If you've seen the image above, don't believe it. The photo is totally fake.
Fake image via ScaryPIct
41) Is this a real cloud that looks like a dragon?

This "cloud dragon" is kinda cool, but don't go thanking Mother Nature. Thank the Photoshop gods. It was created by Deviant Art user StrixCZ.
Fake image via Internet Palace
42) Are these early suffragettes in 1921 eating pizza in large groups to annoy men?

As Tumblr user IronGall explains, there are so many things wrong with the caption to this photo. Like almost everything about it, aside from the year.

First off, these weren't "early suffragettes" in 1921. The Nineteenth Amendment, which gave American women the franchise, was ratified in 1920. Secondly, these women aren't eating pizza. They're eating pie, as you can see from a closer crop of the photo below. In fact, they're having a pie eating contest, according to Shorpy. Sure, they're relatively flat pies. But they're still pies. Pizza didn't become popular in the United States until after the second World War.

Thirdly, it's unclear why women eating pizza in a large group would "annoy men." Whatever the origin of this caption, it probably went through a bizarre and convoluted game of Telephone before it arrived at Twitter's doorstep.
Inaccurate description via Historyepics
43) Is

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76 Viral Images From 2015 That Were Totally Fake

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We debunked dozens of fake photos this year, covering everything from Charles Manson's baby photos to John Lennon's skateboarding skills, and everything in between. It was another busy year for anyone spreading fake images on the internet. Below, we have 76 photos that you may have seen floating around the internet in 2015.

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The fake news epidemic is disturbing. How do we fight it? Well, we can take a hint from how the medical community fights the flu or any other virus. We inoculate ourselves. In this post, I'll teach you how I teach about fake news.

Just as the flu shot exposes a person to enough of the dead "harmless" virus to cause immunity, we can also expose students to things that have already been verified or shown to be fake. By exposing our students to things that look very real, we can help them notice and understand that many things that look real, are lies. We can also help them understand why shady companies and organizations actually benefit from fake news (like a movie coming out this month in one of these examples.)

How does a "fake news" lesson flow?

First, you ask students to research to see if something is true or not. Second, ask students to recommend what a person should do about the information. These mini-lessons can take from 8-15 minutes and so, they are perfect for short, beginning of class "bellringers."

When students come to class, they get a copy of the bellringer and have a timer (usually 4-5 minutes - there should be some time pressure) set for them to give their recommendations.

I'm including screenshots in this post, but if you fill out the form at the bottom, I'll email you the PDF copy of these three lesson plans.

Example #1: Breaking News Bellringer

In this case, we share a tweet and some "news sources." When selecting topics, I like them to be recent enough as to feel real to students and also so that Google search results aren't "full" of the answer.

TIP: After students examine and discuss their answers, I'll often give them a "clue" if they aren't close and have them go back and look again. I like them to find pieces of the answer before unveiling the answer slide on the board.

Breaking News Bellringer Answer

I like this example because it hits on several current topics:

Fake news websites often use similar names to existing news outlets "Houston Leader" (fake news) instead of "The Leader" (a real newspaper in Houston.)

This example also has some motivation behind it and an emerging scandal that an emerging Fox movie "A Cure for Wellness" is now linked from the original news stories which have been taken down. This sort of redirect happens all the time. The website gets lots of links and then has the original content replaced with something new and totally unrelated. Redirects are why you should always click before resharing.

Finally, point out to your students that many times when something is fake and just comes out, that Snopes may not have the answer. Fake news outlets are good at what they do. Click-baiting is a billion dollar business. So, the best way to figure this out is by determining that these fake news sources are truly false. Learn to find out the legitimate newspapers for cities. The Sacramento newspaper is the "Sacramento Bee, " and you can't find anything about the Sacramento Dispatch. If it were legitimate, you'd see a lot more about it.

See how using examples demonstrates to students how fake news works. No lecture in the world can teach like this sort of virus killing fake-news inoculation method. Onto the next one!

Example #2 Viral Video News Story

This example has a video released just a week ago that has gone viral. Now, don't go sharing this yet. Wait until you verify the source.

The Video

So you can play this video in my blog post, here it is. Again, DO NOT SHARE before you research this one!!

Viral News Video Story Answer

Again, give students just 3-4 minutes to find their answer. (I like shortening the time for each of these until students have to make a call within a minute because that is how quickly they have to make this sort of snap judgment in real life.) Don't "give" them the answer but if they are not on the right track, give them clues before revealing the answer. If you're not careful, some students will share videos like this via social media if you don't warn them to do research.

Bellringer #3: To Share or Not To Share

This post has gone around dozens of times; I have to include this reshare Facebook example.

This example is a difficult one. Also, note that I give this information to students so they have to type it into a search engine.

While you could post these online, somehow having students have to type in the information helps them understand how they research. For example, if this text above was posted, most students will copy all of it and paste into Google. It is easy to mix up the spacing and a few words so that such a search won't turn up and students mistakenly think they are in the clear.

Again, let them discuss and give them hints before unveiling the final answer.

To Share or Not To Share Answer

In Summary

Once I've done these with students, I often mix in true things (that sound a bit crazy just to make it interesting.) I also have students make their bellringers to share with the class. Notice how I include sources of information at the bottom to know where the information was retrieved.

I hope these examples inspire and help you to fight fake news in a way that works. The biggest mistakes many educators make:

the "fake news" lessons are lecture based (doesn't work)

the "fake news" lessons use irrelevant examples that are easy to detect as fake

the "fake news" lessons use old stories that have so many search results that it doesn't represent the real world. They're just easy to spot that they are fake. You want more challenging, current topics. If it was on the news last night, those are the best! I'll often type one of these up and do it the next day!

they DON'T TEACH IT AT ALL!!!

So, I've given you three examples for use in your classroom tomorrow. So, get out there and FIGHT FAKE NEWS!

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3 Fast, Free Lesson Plans to Fight Fake News

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The fake news epidemic is disturbing. How do we fight it? Well, we can take a hint from how the medical community fights the flu or any other virus. We inoculate ourselves. In this post, I'll teach you how I teach about fake news.