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It's a Hoax

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There are many Internet hoaxes on the Internet that are believable. It is important that students are taught to identify what is fake and what is real. After reading the content on a website about "The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus", an endangered animal, students will understand that when they search online that not all sources are credible.

This activity will take at least two class periods. The first class period will be spent discussing Internet hoaxes and watching the video. The second class period will be spent looking at the Tree Octopus site and filling out the worksheet.

Students will:

Be able to look at a website while researching and decide if the source is credible.

Be able to tell the difference between real and fake news.

Vocabulary Words:

1. Credible: To be credible is to be valid and truthful.

2. Source: The source is where the information came from.

To prepare for this lesson:

The teacher should look over the Tree Octopus website.

Teachers can also use this website to get more information on fake sites.

Benedictine University Library has an excellent website to assist students and teachers. At the bottom there is a worksheet that the teacher can make a copy of to use with students when they are doing website evaluation.

Teachers should take a look at this video on "Evaluating Websites for Elementary Students".

See the Accommodations Page and Charts on the 21things4students website in the Teacher Resources.
Directions for this activity:

1. Teachers should discuss with students that there are many sites that can easily deceive them into believing the information is true.

2. Show students this YouTube Video on" How to Evaluate a Website".

3. Teachers should direct students to take a look at the Tree Octopus site.

4. The students as they are looking at the site can use the worksheet at the bottom of this website.

5. After the students have viewed the site and filled in the worksheet, discuss this website with the class and talk about the specific reasons why this is not a credible website.

Optional Activity:

Show the students the other sites from the pre-planning section. Ask them if they know of any other sites that are questionable.
Different options for assessing the students:

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Website for REMC Association of Michigan

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Many sources compete for attention online, including partisan blogs and bogus sites posing as legitimate news organizations. It can be tough to know what to trust. So, what does “credibility” look like, and how can you recognize it?

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News Lit Quiz: Is it legit? Vetting news sources for credibility

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Many sources compete for attention online, including partisan blogs and bogus sites posing as legitimate news organizations. It can be tough to know what to trust. So, what does "credibility" look like, and how can you recognize it?

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Building Healthy Relationships with Media

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How to Teach Students to Read to New Critically

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How to Teach Students to Read to New Critically

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Scott Bedley, a fifth-grade teacher from Irvine CA, uses a seven-point checklist for his students when they are reading articles on the Internet.

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I taught my 5th-graders how to spot fake news. Now they won’t stop fact-checking me.

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It’s more important than ever to teach kids how to read news critically.

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The definitive Internet reference source for researching urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.

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Jump to navigation Jump to search

The publishes to track corporations.

We provide well-documented information about corporate public relations (PR) campaigns, including corporate front groups, people who "front" corporate campaigns, and PR operations.

Please visit SourceWatch's sister websites to find our investigations and original documents we release, to read our original reporting, and , to see our award-winning investigation of a corporate front group where corporate lobbyists actually vote as equals with elected legislators on "model" legislation to change our rights.

Also, please check out the in-depth research from around the world by our partner projects within SourceWatch: and .

"As a journalist frequently on the receiving end of various PR campaigns, some of them based on disinformation, others front groups for undisclosed interests, [CMD's SourceWatch] is an invaluable resource."
- Michael Pollan , author of The Botany of Desire

"Thanks for all your help. There's no way I could have done my piece on big PR and global warming without CMD [the Center for Media and Democracy] and your fabulous websites."
-Zoe Cormier, journalist, Canada

"The troublemakers at the Center for Media and Democracy, for example, point to dozens of examples of " greenwashing ," which they defined as the "unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by a company, an industry, a government or even a non-government organization to sell a product, a policy" or rehabilitate an image. In the center's view, many enterprises labeled green don't deserve the name.
-Jack Shafer, " Green Is the New Yellow: On the excesses of 'green' journalism, " Slate.

"The dearth of information on the [U.S.] government [lobbying] disclosure forms about the other business-backed coalitions comes in stark contrast to the data about them culled from media reports, websites, press releases and Internal Revenue Service documents and posted by SourceWatch, a website that tracks advocacy groups."
-Jeanne Cummings,'New disclosure reports lack clarity," Politico.

"The folks at the Center for Media and Democracy have done incredible work documenting fake grassroots ("astroturf") groups . Here, they're helping protect the rights of all Americans to exercise their right to vote . They are completely non-partisan. These guys are the real deal."

- Craig Newmark , craigslist

Disclaimer: SourceWatch is part of the Center for Media and Democracy-email the editor of SourceWatch, via editor AT sourcewatch.org.

Antispam note: To avoid attracting spam email robots, email addresses on SourceWatch are written with AT in place of the usual symbol, and we have removed "mail to" links. Replace AT with the correct symbol to get a valid address. Read the full disclaimer.

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Jump to navigation Jump to search The publishes to track corporations. We provide well-documented information about corporate public relations (PR) campaigns, including corporate front groups, people who "front" corporate campaigns, and PR operations.

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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

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We are the most comprehensive media bias resource on the internet. Don't be fooled by Fake News sources. Search Media Bias. View Fact Checks. Breaking News.

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Fact-checking journalism is the heart of PolitiFact. Our core principles are independence, transparency, fairness, thorough reporting and clear writing. The reason we publish is to give citizens the information they need to govern themselves in a democracy.

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PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others on its Truth-O-Meter.

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The Breaking News Consumer’s Handbook | On the Media | WNYC

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Rampant misreporting following shootings and other breaking news events is so predictable that we unintentionally developed a formula for covering them.

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How Young People Perceive and Are Impacted By the News

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How Young People Perceive and Are Impacted By the News

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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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Media Literacy Guide:  How to Detect Bias in News Media

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Media Literacy Guide:  How to Detect Bias in News Media

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Media have tremendous power in shaping political and cultural narratives-telling us what and who matters, why things are as they are and what it would mean to change them. An informed and critical audience challenges news media to be fair, independent and accurate.

Here are some questions to ask yourself about news you consume, whether it's in print, online, on TV or radio or in your social media feed.

Who are the sources?

Make note of the people quoted in the story, and at what length. Who is considered an expert on the subject?

Media tend to over-rely on "official" sources like government, corporate and think tank representatives, and often fail to highlight the perspectives of ordinary people most affected by a problem, or their advocates.

When the US withdrew its troops from Afghanistan, only 31% of the sources in ABC, CBS and NBC nightly news reports on the story were Afghan or Afghan-American, and only 5% were Afghan women, although coverage often claimed to focus on Afghan women's rights. No scholars or antiwar activists from either the US or Afghanistan were featured ( FAIR.org, ).

Be wary of unnamed sources: News outlets have rules restraining the use of anonymous sources to specific circumstances, including when the information is vital to the story, and when the individual providing the information could be at risk if their name is published. Reporters should also explain in the story the reason the source requested anonymity-beyond "because the source was not authorized to speak on the record."

Pay attention to the diversity of people appearing as sources in the news. In cable news, a 2014 FAIR snapshot found that 84% of guests appearing in interview/discussion segments were white and 72% were male ( FAIR.org, ).

Who is telling the story?

In order to fairly and accurately represent a wide range of stories, news outlets should have a diverse array of identities represented as decision-makers. But a 2018 Columbia Journalism Review study found that US newsroom staff is 83% white, even though people of color make up 37% of the population.

Question the impact of having, for example, a newsroom with no Black employees, making decisions about how to cover the Black Lives Matter movement, or an all-male editorial team reporting on reproductive rights. What might they miss, or misunderstand?

Where does this journalism's funding come from?

Who owns or pays for this news source-a multinational corporation? A billionaire? A hedge fund? Journalists are charged to report the news "without fear or favor," but media outlets' owners and sponsors generate conflicts of interest and affect the agenda behind that outlet's work.

For example, Amazon's Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. The paper has repeatedly extolled the billionaire's vanity space project ( FAIR.org, ), and railed against wealth taxes that would impact his personal bank account ( FAIR.org, ).

Sometimes owner influence is explicit: Axel Springer, which bought Politico in 2021, required reporters to follow the parent company's principles-including support for "a united Europe," "the trans-Atlantic alliance" and "a free market economy" ( FAIR.org, ).

Other times, conflicts are more about the primacy of ratings over journalism. CBS executive Les Moonves acknowledged that Donald Trump's candidacy "might be bad for America," but, because of the ratings-grabbing (and consequent advertiser-spending) spectacle, "it's damn good for CBS."

What are the unchallenged assumptions and stereotypes?

Often the most important message of a story is not explicitly stated.

For instance, corporate media often report heavily on low-level street crime like shoplifting while ignoring widespread corporate crime like wage theft, which has cost workers billions ( FAIR.org, ).

When a gunman in Atlanta opened fire in three Asian-owned spas in 2021, six of the eight victims were Asian women. Media coverage relied heavily on law enforcement narratives, which came with the assumption that all Asian spa workers are sex workers-and an underlying suggestion that sex workers' lives are less valuable. Slanted sourcing meant that a bias about the disposability of some women's lives was a significant, but unexamined, part of the story's framing ( FAIR.org, ).

Does this story include loaded language?

When media adopt loaded terminology or buzzwords, they shape public opinion.

"Proxy" is a word with a negative connotation that implies one country is using another to carry out its interest abroad. By that definition, the US has "proxies," yet US media tend to refer to US-linked countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel as "allies." In the past decade, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post used the word "proxy" to describe Iran's foreign relations four times more often than it used the word "proxy" to describe the US's ( FAIR.org, ). The corporate press has also used "divisive" as shorthand for "unpopular with elites" ( FAIR.org, ). In 2020, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman ( Twitter, ) described a $2,000 Covid relief check as "divisive," even though 75% of Americans (and 72% of Republicans) the government to prioritize another universal payment.

Does this story present a false balance between sides of an issue ("both-sidesing") ?

Both sides are not always equal-especially when one is based on disinformation or hate. When reporting gives as much voice to truth as it does to lies and propaganda, it stokes a harmful debate and normalizes disinformation. "Objectivity" without accurate analysis is not ethical journalism.

Coverage of 2021 violence in Israel/Palestine described Israel's attacks on Palestinians as simply justified "retaliations" to aggression by Hamas, ignoring the military siege the Israeli government has been carrying out on Gaza for more than a decade. Words like "clash" are also often used to position both groups as equally participating in violence, despite the disproportionate violence Palestinian civilians receive at the hands of Israeli forces ( FAIR.org, ). According to the human rights group , since 2000 there have been eight times as many Palestinians killed by Israelis as there have been Israelis killed by Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories.

Are the visuals misleading?

We often think of photographs as objective, but they can easily skew a story line or point the reader toward one perspective. Misleading visuals can also come in the form of a graph or chart that looks as if it is showing accurate statistics but is manipulating data.

In 2016, the New York Times reported that employment rates for white Americans were dropping, while rates for Black, Asian and Hispanic Americans were rising. The Times' chart misled by omitting key context: The main reason for the difference is that the number of working-age whites had fallen, while the number of working-age people in the other groups had risen ( FAIR.org, ).

Does the headline match reality-or the rest of the piece?

Generally written by editors, not reporters, headlines may be restricted by space or search engine requirements. But many people get the bulk of their news from skimming headlines alone, so misleading headlines have a significant impact.

"Hundreds of Thai Medical Workers Infected Despite Sinovac Vaccinations," read one Reuters headline (7/11/21). The story itself revealed that it was 618 workers out of 677,348-or 0.09%. The New York Times (11/11/20) headlined a story, "Brazil Resumes Chinese Vaccine Trial After a Brief Suspension Following the Death of a Volunteer." Readers who didn't read past the headline would never guess that the volunteer's cause of death was suicide, and not vaccine-related ( Extra!, 8-9/21).

Other headlines are misleadingly vague. In 2022, after Senate Republicans voted against legislation to counter voting restrictions across the country, the New York Times ran with the headline, "After a day of debate, the voting rights bill is blocked in the Senate" ( ). This passive wording fails to acknowledge who was responsible for blocking the bill. "GOP Blocks Voting Rights Bill in Senate" would not have only been a clearer headline-it also would've taken up less space!

How prominently are stories placed?

Where a story is shown and how easily it can be accessed affect how many people read it, and how significant it is deemed to be. Keep note of whether stories on crucial topics are featured on the homepage of the website, the front page of a paper, or given time on TV news.

During the New York City mayoral primaries in 2021, tabloids' front pages were emblazoned with sensationalist headlines about shoplifting and other street crimes. Readers were eight to ten times more likely to read about local crime than the local housing crisis, a story that rarely graced the front pages. This coverage imbalance suggested to readers that crime was a more prevalent problem, while in reality the chances of being severely rent-burdened in New York were 1 in 6, while the chances of being shot were 1 in 5,000 ( FAIR.org, ).

In 2019, Congress approved a $22 increase in the military budget from the year before. Ten major outlets gave the story less than half the coverage of that given to a Peloton ad ( FAIR.org, ).

HOW TO TAKE ACTION

In recent years, newspapers have been phasing out the use of ombuds public editors who field critiques from readers and publish their own commentary on the paper's editorial choices. The only major outlet that still has a public editor is NPR, which appointed Kelly McBride for the role in 2020. Finding the right people to reach out to can be difficult, but most journalists and editors publicly display their email and social media in their writers' bios. FAIR believes respectful, concise and direct communication with outlets makes a difference in corporate media's reporting.

Visit FAIR's Media Contacts page for more information on how to reach out.

Other ways to be a media activist include:

Supporting independent, nonprofit news outlets

Publicly discussing bias, omissions and other issues in reporting on social media (Most outlets, editors and journalists have public Twitter and Facebook pages-tag them!)

Organizing public demonstrations (For more on how to effectively demonstrate, visit FAIR's " " page.)

Sign up for FAIR's Action Alerts to receive an email every time FAIR documents an instance of media inaccuracy or bias and encourage members to communicate directly to journalists to demand more responsible reporting.

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Media Literacy Guide: How to Detect Bias in News Media

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Media have tremendous power in shaping political and cultural narratives-telling us what and who matters, why things are as they are and what it would mean to change them. An informed and critical audience challenges news media to be fair, independent and accurate. Here are some questions to ask yourself about news you consume, whether...

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-42.0-30.0-18.0-12.0-6.00.06.012.018.030.042.0Most Extreme LeftHyper-Partisan LeftStrong LeftSkews LeftMiddle or Balanced BiasSkews RightStrong RightHyper-Partisan RightMost Extreme Right0.08.016.024.032.040.048.056.064.0ContainsInaccurate /Fabricated InfoContainsMisleading InfoSelective orIncomplete /Unfair PersuasionOpinion or WideVariation inReliabilityAnalysis or WideVariation inReliabilityMix of FactReporting andAnalysis orSimple FactReportingThorough FactReporting orFact-DenseAnalysisOriginal FactReporting, HighEffort* Audience Size is provided by Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform and represents an unduplicated measure of digital audiences across desktop and mobile devices.Comscore audience size is visible on a limited number of sources on this free version. Use of Comscore data is subject to theirTerms of UseandProduct Terms. To see Comscore audience data for all available news sources, learn aboutupgrading to ProMedia Bias Chart® Licensed Copy. Copyright © Ad Fontes Media, Inc 2025

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The Problem With Fake News and How Our Students Can  Solve It

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The Problem With Fake News and How Our Students Can  Solve It

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Worksheet to be used with the video

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Helping Students Identify Fake News with the Five C's of Critical Consuming

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How can we tell if the information we see online is credible?

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How can we tell if the information we see online is credible? Check out S.I.F.T. for Sources, a free digital literacy and citizenship lesson plan by Common Sense Media. Teach students in 4 about responsible and healthy media and tech use.

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How does media framing influence our understanding of events and the world around us?

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How does media framing influence our understanding of events and the world around us? Check out Media Frames: Looking Beyond Headlines, a free digital literacy and citizenship lesson plan by Common Sense Media. Teach students in 5 about responsible and healthy media and tech use.

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How do I practice lateral reading to evaluate information online?

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How do I practice lateral reading to evaluate information online? Check out Evaluating Information Online, a free digital literacy and citizenship lesson plan by Common Sense Media. Teach students in 7 about responsible and healthy media and tech use.

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About the Toolkit

The Media Literacy Toolkit has been designed to support educators as they introduce students to the process of finding, organizing, using, producing, evaluating, distributing information in a variety of media formats, ways to work ethically and professionally with the resources, and how to adjust to rapidly changing technological environments and tools.

WHO IS THIS DESIGNED FOR?

This user-friendly toolkit is for educators wishing to embark on a learner-centered, job-embedded approach to implementing digital citizenship activities. It can be used across all grade levels and content areas.

What is Included

The toolkit provides resources for new learning, questions for reflection, and tasks for skill development organized into 6 sections:

Organizations Supporting Media Literacy Education

Educator Toolkits

Curriculum Resources

Interactive Student Apps, Experiences, and Challenges

Professional Development for Media Literacy

Tools to Support Media Literacy

HOW TO USE THE TOOLKIT

This toolkit can be used by teachers for their own professional learning or within the classroom by students. Each section of the toolkit can be explored independently or the entire toolkit can be implemented in the order presented to serve as a comprehensive resource for implementing media literacy in your classroom or school.

The work was possible through a partnership between:

REMC Association of Michigan

Dell Technologies

Advanced Learning Partnerships

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Media Literacy Toolkit introduces students to finding, organizing, using, producing, evaluating, and distributing information in a variety of media formats.

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News and Media Literacy | PBS LearningMedia

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This collection, which includes videos, blog articles, student handouts, lesson plans, and tip sheets for families, helps students identify, analyze, and investigate the news and information they get from online sources. Media literacy is an essential skill for all students across a range of subjects, from Science to Social Studies to English Language Arts. The collection is also useful for a behind-the-scenes look at journalism and how information is researched, shaped, and reported. Check out the resources in the collection topics.
Explore a cross-country road trip with a group of early-career journalists whose mission was to report, through conversations with diverse communities, on issues that divide us and stories that unite us at Crossing the Divide.

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https://libguides.mnsu.edu/beyond_fake_news

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Library Class and Subject Guides: Beyond Fake News: Introduction

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Identifying Problems within Evolving Information Technologies Online

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Grades 7-12. Students examine how people get their news, how outlets may select which stories to cover, and compare how different outlets handle the same topic. Students work on comparing point of view and bias.

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Examine current news stories and how they’re covered by the news media

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Resources for librarians to use to equip students and the general public to identify reliable sources of news and other information.

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News Lit Quiz: Is it legit? Vetting news sources for credibility

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Many sources compete for attention online, including partisan blogs and bogus sites posing as legitimate news organizations. It can be tough to know what to trust. So, what does "credibility" look like, and how can you recognize it?

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Can be used for students in grades 3-5

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We can all act like Media Monsters. Every day we interact with endless media all around us, which means we need to practice our media literacy skills.

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Variety of lessons on fake news.

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Skip to Main Content

Know It When You See It

Ready to learn how to spot fake news? Here are a few quick-start guides:

More Tips:

Stay Informed

This curated list of articles explores new developments in the fight against fake news.

Web Resources

BE ADVISED: The browser extensions listed below are designed to alert you when the information you're seeing online is from a fake or questionable source. These tools can be helpful, but they should not be considered substitutes for doing your own fact-checking and critical analysis. Use with discretion.

Need data? Be sure they come from reputable sources. Here are just a few:

Library Resources

MDC students and employees have free access to over 100 subscription-based library databases. The following databases are useful for finding articles on news and current issues.

If prompted to log in, enter your MDC username and password.

News:

Pro/Con Issues:

Want to learn more about fighting fake news and finding reliable information? LIS 2004 (Strategies for Online Research) is a one-credit course designed to help you use the internet more effectively. Contact a librarian for more information.

North:

Kendall:

Wolfson:

Medical Center:

Homestead:

Padrón:

Hialeah:

West:

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LibGuides: Fake News (and how to fight it): Home