Keeping It Real: How to Spot Fake News

A guide to identifying and evaluating news sources to distinguish quality reliable sources from the spectrum of fake news available on the web.

About This Guide

Fake News InvasionAbout this guide

The Luria Library at Santa Barbara City College has graciously shared this guide with Phoenix College.  It provides information about inaccurate, misleading, and satirical “news” sites, as well as links to reliable sources of news, and tools for evaluating the information you find online.  Content in this guide was also taken directly from Mike Caufield's open source book, Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers

Use the tabs above to navigate through the pages of this guide.

Image from the Snopes' Field Guide to Fake News Sites and Hoax Purveyors

The Life Cycle of a Fake News Article

How does fake news spread to influence millions of readers?  Read this New York Times case study.

Intro

What Is Fake News?

What is Fake News?
According to the fact-checking website, Politifact, "Fake news is made-up stuff, masterfully manipulated to look like credible journalistic reports that are easily spread online to large audiences willing to believe the fictions and spread the word."

Types of Fake News

  • Fake/Hoax News - news that is fabricated with the intention of misleading or confusing readers
  • Misleading News - news stories that report quotes, images, statistics out of context, some of these stories can be old stories that are re-reported with a new misleading headline
  • Mimic Websites - fake news websites that mimic the look of trusted news sources in order to fool readers into thinking a story is real
  • Satire - fake and ironic news stories that are intended to be funny or entertaining. Examples: The Onion, The Borowitz Report
  • Clickbait - news that is promoted with dramatic or misleading headlines that do not reflect the content of the actual story
  • Alternative/Alternate Facts - A different interpretation of facts, usually derived from a misinterpretation of reports or by focusing only on a subset of the available information

SOURCE: Austin LibGuide

 

What fake news is NOT

Some have used the concept of fake news to dismiss or discredit news stories and facts that disagree with their own opinions on the issue, or with their general world view.  News does NOT become fake simply because it challenges your own beliefs or ideas, or even because it conflicts with something else that you read on the topic.  Often times, there is good evidence and valid viewpoints on both sides of an issue, and so articles that highlight the evidence on one side or the other does not necessarily fit any criteria as "fake news."

 

Confirmation Bias

It is easy to assume something is true when it confirms beliefs and opinions that you already hold.  This is known as "confirmation bias."  To avoid the trap of confirmation bias, it is crucial to pull information from a variety of sources and to evaluate the information in those sources objectively.

Filter Bubbles

What are Filter Bubbles?

A filter bubble or echo chamber is the result of website algorithms designed to determine which content you want to see and which you don’t, based on your past behavior and other information about you. Over time, the web content you see represents an increasingly narrow range of information and ideas, and you are exposed to fewer and fewer experiences, ideologies, and perspectives that differ from yours.

  • Explore this interactive graphic created by The Wall Street Journal demonstrates how Facebook feeds differed for liberals and conservatives during the 2016 presidential campaign. The Vox article How Social Media Creates Angry, Poorly Informed Partisans elaborates on this phenomenon.
  • If you have your own Facebook account, you can follow the instructions in this article from The New York Times to find out how Facebook has labeled your politics.

Filter bubble resources

To get out of your own filter bubble, try using these strategies:

  • Disable Google’s Personalized Search: Click “Settings” on the lower right of the Google search page, and select “History” from the menu. Click on “Activity Controls” from the left menu, then uncheck the box next to “Include Chrome browsing history and activity from websites and apps that use Google services.”
  • Seek Out Information From A Range of Credible Sources: Start by exploring some of the sources on the “Finding Reliable News” page of this guide. To get a better sense of the range of opinions on a news topic, use AllSides, a news services that “exposes bias and provides multiple angles on the same story so you can quickly get the full picture, not just one slant.”
  • Try The Tips In These Articles: