'Colleges Turn Fake News' Epidemic Into A Teachable Moment

According to Dr. Gerald Nosich, an expert in critical thinking and author of the book: Learning to Think Things Through: A Guide to Critical Thinking across the Curriculum, “Many aspects of the world we live in can be impediments to learning to think more critically” (17). Nosich addresses that one of the biggest impediments to critically thinking comes from the news (17). If the news media is a hindrance on our ability to think things through critically, it must be held accountable for the content it produces. To create accountability, Nosich establishes the standards of critical thinking that reasoning must undergo for it to be deemed critical (133). In the United States, news media channels are heavily criticized for being biased and misinforming

Whom should we listen to? The best person to listen to is the actual source, to hear the information from the individual at hand and if it’s not a person and it’s a specific topic to gather information about the subject yourself. Majority of those who have been taught to understand what are reliable sources and what unreliable understand where to get information if needed. The issue is that people are disregarding the proper way of getting reliable and factual information. People rather just be lazy and have someone tell it to them ten to dig a lot deeper to gather the information that they need to form their own thoughts and opinions about anything. There is a newspaper about fake news from Jeff Parsons and the Researchers at the University of Cambridge speaking about an experiment to preemptively fake news so that they can rid people of any misinformation (Parsons, How to stop fake news).. The experiment involved 2,000 U.S. residents. Dr. Sander Van Der Linden, the lead author of the study explained, “The idea is to provide a cognitive repertoire that helps build up resistance to misinformation, so the next time people come across it they are less susceptible (Parsons, How to stop fake news).” This was a great experiment and a very necessary experiment because of the fake news and the impact it has in our society we need to figure out to stop it and to also make sure that we are

Social media news and magazines are brainwashing students: many people would say this actual worldwide effect on todays' society! Especially, author Camila Domonoske would agree, who published, “ Students Have 'Dismaying' Inability To Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds” she argues and illustrates there is a “ fake news crisis” and that teens are allegedly the most affected by what is true in the news today. Domonoske’s sources are put together without adding personal opinions in her article, which can be considered “ bias” and not reliable to some readers. Her article is supported strongly to readers with informing the readers of several sources, abundant amount proven facts, statistics and using a creative writing strategy such as logos throughout her argument to appeal her readers.

Often times people utilize certain sources and watch certain news channels because these viewers can relate to the views on these sources. It can make one believe that his/her perspective is correct simply because that is what the new source is providing. Viewers watch news sources that share the same opinions as their own, because these viewers are just as bias as the sources; these viewers favor one side, as do the news sources. John Stossel, a Fox News reporter discusses the book “Bias” with author Bernie Goldberg, an ex CBS News reporter. John expected for ABC to read the book and disagree with Bernie on the ABC news channel (Goldberg and Stossel). However, these people were proud of not reading the book and gave it no attention. Even if one does not agree with a certain viewpoint, it is very important to hear the different perspectives because it allows the viewer to see and hear other people’s opinion. Because most news sources do not include all sides, it becomes difficult for an individual to

The College Conspiracy Review The College Conspiracy is a documentary, created by the National Inflation Association, on the college system in America saying that it is a scam and that the young american society should start investing in silver and gold as soon as they graduate college. The documentary starts with a statement saying that children are brainwashed in the 6th grade to do excellent in high school in order to enter college. Then, the documentary goes on to tell that tuition is starting to suffer from hyperinflation. Students that go to college will highly be in debt when they finish because of this hyperinflation.

On September 10th, Katie Sanders from PunditFact and former writer from Politifact Florida gave a speech at the Bob Graham Center titled Pants on Fire: Misinformation in American Politics. The talk and subsequent Q&A centered on the perpetuation of misinformation that is experienced in contemporary American politics as well as what journalists and common people alike can do to combat it. Though these were the focal points, three related tangents were my main takeaway from the experience.

The reflection period out of this conversation was for me shocking. As an engaged political person, I at least try to be engaged with the news. I find that CBS and New York Times are the most reliable news corporation out there with little to no bias at all, all facts. However, my colleagues find that the current mainstream news media are becoming either gossip, tabloid, or fake news channels. Respectively, I take offense to their beliefs on the basis that the news today is fake. Throughout history, it has been the news and investigative journalism that led to the many stories that transformed this nation into many shapes and forms. Without the news, a society will be at worst an anarchist society where nobody trusts each other or a tyrannical society where the populace will fall for anything that the state displays. It has been an American right of having open news sources, do Americans want to disregard this right in favor of being handed a silver platter of information from bias sources? Anyways, going back to

During times of tragedies and immense events, we like to be comforted with information that makes sense to us. “Confirmation bias is the idea that we’re more likely to consume and share information that fits with our already-held beliefs”(Willingham 2). Sometimes during a time a tragedy, we cling onto what we find is comfortable. With confirmation bias, the fake news that is served directly to us is what we think fits our prior knowledge. In order to neglect confirmation bias, we need to confront the real situation and not believe what seems plausible(Willingham 2). If you see a shark swimming through streets flooded with water after a hurricane, are you going to believe it?(Willingham 2). Even though people are ranting about how awful the

Christiane Amanpour aimed to inform the audience about the state of journalism due to fake news and persuade the viewers to dig for and focus on the truth in the information they find. The Tedtalk’s audience were journalist and those who consume information, because it provides advice for current journalists. It, also, speaks to those who consume information, because Amanpour describes sifting through information and hearing both sides. Amanpour’s Tedtalk is relevant to academic composition because writers must find sources that are reliable and objective enough to support their argument without adding bias to the essay. Also, as consumers of information, our goal should be to find the truth in every piece of information we read. We need to

People automatically assume that a news organization’s bias is strictly a bad thing, while this does seem like a bad thing, the bias is negated by the sheer quantity of news sites that you can easily visit, this may take some additional time, but it doesn’t have to take a long time, while you’re stuck in traffic you can just pull out your smartphone and look at some news sites. If you find that one site has too much of a bias that doesn’t mean that you should just ignore that site completely, instead you should look for the same news story on a different site that has a different perspective, instead of just looking at the media from one point of view, look at both the left and right point of view. This bias allows for a look into how both sides see an argument, while one side may see something as a good thing, another side may see it as a bad thing. This allows you to get into the mind of the news stations and their reporters. While you're watching the news always maintain a level of skepticism about what the news station is saying. Skepticism is key to watching the news in any environment, without any level of skepticism you quickly become a mindless zombies that just believe something because it was said on Fox NEWS or MSNBC. You should take into account all the things said by the different news stations in order to formulate

“Information Literacy: It’s Become a Priority in an Era of Fake News” written by Shannon Najmabadi’s states how critical it is today to be able recognize the truth as lies have become a widespread as they are featured in many sources. Shannon recognizing this predicament is supported by a report by the Stanford University presenting the nerving truth that students are unable to find credible resources. Shannon therefor defines information literacy as the ability to find, evaluate, and use information as an important technique that needs more focus so people know how to gather honest sources. In support of Shannon she uses the lack of information literacy being taught, the change trying to be made, and her call for action as her hope for others

All people that are false accusers need to be punished. The false accusations are too common on college campuses. This is due to a large amount of media and most everyone thinking that no one can make up a story about something that is taken so serious. We are taught to always to listen and believe every accuser, no matter what, they are the victim they are never wrong, they would never lie about this. This girl named Nikki Yovino lied that the Sacred Heart University football players of raping her at a party in a basement. When the police questioned Yovino told that she had a witness, but her witness said that ,“Yovino went to the bathroom willingly and even told the men she wanted to have sex with them,”. Later on Yovino admitted making up the accusation, so she can win affection of another man. Yovino said,”it was the first thing that popped in my head, I didn’t want to lose a friend, or almost boyfriend.” the police put “Yovino stated that she believed when the other male student heard about this allegation, it would make him

Additionally, the media goes to extremes to get viewers, and viewers take sides without knowing the full story, but some people make up articles which experts call “fake news.” Fake news has been reported by many big corporations like CNN or FOX news. CNN did a section about “fake news” and how people edit or invent stories, mostly about sports to get viewers to read them, which in turn gives the makers of the article money. CNN had an interview with some of the owners of fake news websites and to our surprise, some of these website owners did not know or care that the articles they were posting were fake, and

“I am not going to give you a question. You are fake news.” This is the now infamous response from President Donald Trump during his first press conference since taking office when asked “Sir, can you give us a chance to ask a question?” by CNN reporter Jim Acosta (Johnson, 2017). President Trump’s dismissal of Accosta sparked the colloquial usage of the term “fake news,” a phrase the current president uses to lambaste media sources who report stories that do not present a favorable impression of his presidency. However, true “fake news,” has existed for far longer than Donald Trump’s presidency and includes three main types: satire, biased reporting, and deliberate misinformation. Fake news has grown in quantity and now Americans across the country are expressing concerns about not being able to trust media sources once considered honest and reputable, along with having trouble distinguishing between real and fake news.

As the world evolves and changes due to the explosion of technology, so does mankind's ways of intellectual comprehension of informative news. The present day of news has overemphasized the meaning of fake news; which represents any form of false information that is illustrated as factual news. That tends to spread throughout the internet and the media. Misinformed news has taken over the world in so many ways, such as the birth of satirical and sketchy news, the financial motivation to publish actual false news, and difficult to sustain news.