Combat Mis-information by Checking the Facts
please verify before posting information about ICE raids. Well intentioned posts can cause panic in already tense communities.
The American Press Institute is curating this page of timely questions and vetted resources for fact checkers — along with our tips on how to navigate the data. Updated often.
Use this nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” site that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. http://www.factcheck.org/
Click here to learn how to report fake news on facebook
Tips for analyzing news sources:
- Avoid websites that end in “lo” ex: Newslo. These sites take pieces of accurate information and then packaging that information with other false or misleading “facts” (sometimes for the purposes of satire or comedy).
- Watch out for websites that end in “.com.co” as they are often fake versions of real news sources
- Watch out if known/reputable news sites are not also reporting on the story. Sometimes lack of coverage is the result of corporate media bias and other factors, but there should typically be more than one source reporting on a topic or event.
- Odd domain names generally equal odd and rarely truthful news.
- Lack of author attribution may, but not always, signify that the news story is suspect and requires verification.
- Some news organizations are also letting bloggers post under the banner of particular news brands; however, many of these posts do not go through the same editing process (ex: BuzzFeed Community Posts, Kinja blogs, Forbes blogs).
- Check the “About Us” tab on websites or look up the website on Snopes or Wikipedia for more information about the source.
- Bad web design and use of ALL CAPS can also be a sign that the source you’re looking at should be verified and/or read in conjunction with other sources.
- If the story makes you REALLY ANGRY it’s probably a good idea to keep reading about the topic via other sources to make sure the story you read wasn’t purposefully trying to make you angry (with potentially misleading or false information) in order to generate shares and ad revenue.
- If the website you’re reading encourages you to DOX individuals, it’s unlikely to be a legitimate source of news.
- It’s always best to read multiple sources of information to get a variety of viewpoints and media frames. Some sources not yet included in this list (although their practices at times may qualify them for addition), such as The Daily Kos, The Huffington Post, and Fox News, vacillate between providing important, legitimate, problematic, and/or hyperbolic news coverage, requiring readers and viewers to verify and contextualize information with other sources.
- For more tips on analyzing the credibility and reliability of sources, please check out School Library Journal (they also provide an extensive list of media literacy resources) and the Digital Resource Center.
- © 2016 by Melissa Zimdars. The work 'False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical “News” Sources'
is made available under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Please Stop Sharing Links to These Sites
September 18, 20161716
Commentsby: Ed Brayton
The liberal side of the internet has a serious problem in the form of far too many websites that people mistake for actual news sites that use clickbait headlines and highly distorted articles to feed into the confirmation bias of their intended audience. And it works. Far too many people, including some of you I’m sure, are falling for it.
I see links to these sites on my Facebook feed dozens of times a day and it makes me want to smack my head into a wall, often shared by otherwise intelligent people who consider themselves to be skeptics. And yet they will share a link to an article with headlines like “Trump DESTROYED by MSNBC host.” Here’s a good rule of thumb: If a word in a headline is in all caps, it’s probably bullshit. And most of the time, if you read the article — which studies show most people don’t bother to do before sharing it — you find that it doesn’t fit the headline at all. The headlines are often wildly exaggerated or just plain false.
So why do so many people share this crap? Primarily because of confirmation bias, I think. They support Hillary (or Bernie) and hate Donald Trump, so if the headline says something bad about them, they’ll share it. If the studies are accurate, about 60% of them don’t even bother to read the article to see if it contains any evidence that matches the headline; if the headline fits the narrative in their head, they share it. Sadly, when you call them out for this and point out that what they shared simply is not true, or at the least is vastly exaggerated, they often get angry rather than being reasonable about it.
This is something the right has been doing for a very long time. Sites like Newsmax, Breitbart and many others have had this as their core strategy for making money from the moment they were created — use outrageous headlines and highly distorted articles that match the mindset of their audience, wind them up into a frenzy, and watch the pageviews roll in. It’s highly disappointing to me that the left has begun to emulate them, as if accuracy simply doesn’t matter as long as it advances their ideological agenda. I expect better from the people on my side of the fence.
So herewith, a near-definitive list of the sites that I think should not be cited. Print it up and keep it by your computer, or keep the list on your phone or tablet. When you see clickbait headlines, stop clicking on them, and especially stop sharing them. And if you feel I’ve missed any, please add to the list in the comments.
Occupy Democrats
Bipartisan Report
Winning Democrats
PoliticusUSA
Blue Nation Review
IfYouOnlyNews
USUncut
The Freethought Project
Addicting Info
LiberalAmerica
Newslo
Politicalo (almost anything that ends on lo; these sites specialize in taking accurate statements from politicians and then adding false quotes to them that are much worse than what they actually said)
DailyNewsBin
American News X
Being Liberal
The Other 98%
September 18, 20161716
Commentsby: Ed Brayton
The liberal side of the internet has a serious problem in the form of far too many websites that people mistake for actual news sites that use clickbait headlines and highly distorted articles to feed into the confirmation bias of their intended audience. And it works. Far too many people, including some of you I’m sure, are falling for it.
I see links to these sites on my Facebook feed dozens of times a day and it makes me want to smack my head into a wall, often shared by otherwise intelligent people who consider themselves to be skeptics. And yet they will share a link to an article with headlines like “Trump DESTROYED by MSNBC host.” Here’s a good rule of thumb: If a word in a headline is in all caps, it’s probably bullshit. And most of the time, if you read the article — which studies show most people don’t bother to do before sharing it — you find that it doesn’t fit the headline at all. The headlines are often wildly exaggerated or just plain false.
So why do so many people share this crap? Primarily because of confirmation bias, I think. They support Hillary (or Bernie) and hate Donald Trump, so if the headline says something bad about them, they’ll share it. If the studies are accurate, about 60% of them don’t even bother to read the article to see if it contains any evidence that matches the headline; if the headline fits the narrative in their head, they share it. Sadly, when you call them out for this and point out that what they shared simply is not true, or at the least is vastly exaggerated, they often get angry rather than being reasonable about it.
This is something the right has been doing for a very long time. Sites like Newsmax, Breitbart and many others have had this as their core strategy for making money from the moment they were created — use outrageous headlines and highly distorted articles that match the mindset of their audience, wind them up into a frenzy, and watch the pageviews roll in. It’s highly disappointing to me that the left has begun to emulate them, as if accuracy simply doesn’t matter as long as it advances their ideological agenda. I expect better from the people on my side of the fence.
So herewith, a near-definitive list of the sites that I think should not be cited. Print it up and keep it by your computer, or keep the list on your phone or tablet. When you see clickbait headlines, stop clicking on them, and especially stop sharing them. And if you feel I’ve missed any, please add to the list in the comments.
Occupy Democrats
Bipartisan Report
Winning Democrats
PoliticusUSA
Blue Nation Review
IfYouOnlyNews
USUncut
The Freethought Project
Addicting Info
LiberalAmerica
Newslo
Politicalo (almost anything that ends on lo; these sites specialize in taking accurate statements from politicians and then adding false quotes to them that are much worse than what they actually said)
DailyNewsBin
American News X
Being Liberal
The Other 98%