CO 211: Introduction to Journalism

From Oxford Dictionaries:

Fact-checkers consult primary sources, non-partisan government agencies and experts on relevant topics in order to verify information included in news reporting.

How Factcheck.org verifies information:

"A fact-checker goes through the story line by line, word by word, to make sure that every fact is correct and every statement we make and conclusion we draw is accurate and based on the evidence. All of our stories contain hyperlinks to source material, so that readers can check our facts...If any new information comes to light after we publish a story that materially changes that story, we will clarify, correct or update our story and provide a note to readers that explains the change, why it was made and the date it was made."

Use these tactics to help you decide whether information is true:

• Check for previous work: Look around to see if someone else has already fact-checked the claim or provided a synthesis of research conducted.
• Go upstream to the source: Go “upstream” to the source of the claim. Since most web content is not original, you should backtrack to the original source of the assertion to understand the trustworthiness of the information.
• Read laterally: Once you get to the source of a claim (book, article, photo, etc.), read what trusted sources say about it. Look for consensus amongst these sources.
• Circle back: If you get lost, hit dead ends, or find yourself going down an increasingly confusing rabbit hole, back up and start over knowing what you know now. You’re likely to take a more informed path with different search terms and better decisions.

In general, you can try the above moves in sequence. If you find success at any stage, your work might be done.

When you encounter a claim you want to check, your first move might be to check sites like Politifact, Snopes, or even Wikipedia to see if they have researched the claim (Check for previous work). You can also do a quick search like [claim] + "hoax."

If you can’t find previous work on the claim, start by trying to trace the claim to the source. If the claim is about research, try to find the journal in which it appeared. If the claim is about an event, try to find the news publication in which it was originally reported (Go upstream).

If you find that the source of the claim is not reliable, read across reliable sources to assess further. (Read laterally).

And if at any point you fail–if the source you find is not trustworthy, complex questions emerge, or the claim turns out to have multiple sub-claims–then you circle back, and start a new process. Rewrite the claim. Try a new search of fact-checking sites, or find an alternate source (Circle back).

For more information on fact-checking strategies see Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers.

Adapted from Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers by Michael A. Caulfield and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Here's a quick video on lateral reading from MediaWise:

Video Source: Poynter Institute/MediaWise

A 2023 Pew Research Fact Sheet states that half of U.S. adults say they get news "at least sometimes" from social media platforms, demonstrating that social media continues to play a critical role in our news consumption. Several trends have emerged per a 2024 Pew Study:

• A majority of social media users say they do not use those platforms to find news
• They do see news on those platforms, but most often it is opinion or humor-based content
• Most consumers of news on social media say they encounter inaccurate news at least occasionally
• Facebook and Instagram users typically get news from friends and family, while X users get it from journalists
• TikTok users get news from influencers and celebrities

However, users continue to expect inaccurate news as part of their social media consumption, and have grown increasingly concerned about it per another 2024 Pew Study.

 A 2018 Pew Research study found that "newsroom employees are more likely to be white and male than U.S. workers overall." This is troubling given the results of 2013 media study on diversity that argues that the type of stories that get reported is likely to depend upon who is doing the reporting. However, the Pew report did note that younger reporters are more likely to embody racial, ethnic and gender diversity than their older colleagues.