Should You Trust That News Story You 'Re Reading? Here's How To Check'

A popular phrase growing up might have been “don’t believe everything you see on the internet.” Many websites, newspapers, magazines, and networks may not present accurate information. A document can display information in a professional manner, but the information itself can be biased, and unsupported by evidence, ultimately making the presented information more of an opinion opposed to factual information. They are certainly hard to find, but credible and unbiased information does exist. “Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the Mind,” by Ethan Watters, has every quality that is expected of a credible document, as well as “Why Nice Guys Finish Last,” by Julia Serano, and “The weirdest people in the world?,” by Joseph Henrich, Steven J. Heine,

Out of the variety of news sources such as TV, radio, or newspapers, one of the popular sources in today’s world is social media. People are getting addicted to and can’t live without social media such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. They use social media as of where they can post their status but also where they can receive a lot of different news. While social media are spreading any kinds of news such as trend, celebrity or even politics, people easily get the information that is not true called “fake news.” The fake news raises the major problem in social media as the news source. Once people see the news, they tend to believe and share it. Liking can spread out fake news in a second. When people like the news, the activity

When reading, viewing, or listening to a mass media report, it is often tough for an audience to decide whether the information being present is accurate and reliable. In order to get a computer program to use reliable evidence, the program would have to be able to detect reliable and unreliable sources. To do this, the program could use a checklist when reviewing all potential sources of evidence. Signs of a unreliable source that could be on this list are its use of abusive language or bad grammar, no date of publication, that it is not associated with a reputable organization or publisher or that it presents only one side of a story. Having any of these signs checked off would indicate this source as unreliable and not fit for evidence in the program’s piece of

Thesis: Dissemination of news through social media allows for rapid distribution and incredible accessibility, but can lead to decreased understanding, stifled discussion, and even the propagation of fake news stories.

In order to gain knowledge and understanding, you must learn how to sift through information. To do this people must exercise a healthy amount of skepticism in everyday life so they are not deceived by false or misleading information. If you’re too trusting of what you read or hear you can easily be misinformed and could likely spread unreliable information. On the other hand, If you choose not to accept most information you can easily become ignorant and uneducated about the world around you. Sadly, in this day and age, journalism has become less reliable, so it is important to seek information from many sources to validate what you may read. Doing so will also aide in keeping an open mind by hearing stories from different

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

Fake news is a big problem and most people don’t know how to identify if a source of information is true or fake. First, by reading the about us section on a website or wherever you are getting the information can help you know if it's a reliable source or author. Wynne Davis says that “ Most sites will have a lot of information about the news outlet” (9). He also claims that “ If it seems melodramatic and seems overblown, you should be skeptical… you should be able to find out more information… in places other than the cite” (9) Knowing about where the information is coming from is a great way to have reliable information because you know how credible the author is and the website also where they are getting their information, and how educated they are on the topic. Secondly, looking at the comments section really helps to know how reliable a source is the author says that “ Headlines often will be written in exaggerated language… and attached to stories that are completely different

Social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat are constantly being used in people’s everyday life. I use Facebook similarly to how I would utilize a news station than using it as a social website. Unfortunately, nowadays it is difficult for the public to differentiate fabricated fake news from honest news. Sometimes I wonder the amount of factual nonbiased news is out in the media. The reason being, most reports and broadcasts involve the use of pathos and ethos in order to sway the audience in a particular way. I think if I was exposed to different content presented in a different manner, than my beliefs and values could be radically

The article, “Reality Check”, made me think about how much false information we are given. You can’t trust anyone, everyone lies. Even if they think the information is true, their source could be wrong. It’s almost impossible to find reliable facts in our world. I always go on twitter at night, and I’ll read the most unbelievable things on there and still listen to it just because it’s there. I’ll get heated over tweets that have fake information and make a fool of myself. I need to stop looking at twitter and maybe try the news instead. However, Achenbach states that sometimes even reliable sources like news shows give out bad information. So there really is no information show or website out there that you can trust. Even the government gets things wrong and/or lies to us. This article made me sad for the human race. Why do we feel the need to make up fake information and spread it. This is something that has happened a lot in my high school experience. Girls and guys get petty and decide to spread vicious rumors about others. However, the fact that other people believe it and continue to spread it around makes it even worst. “Reality Check” did make great points about false information, but it also confused me. I found this article very hard to follow and comprehend because it was so boring. Some parts in the article just

After reading Gillmor’s article I felt that his recommendations were helpful. When I first started to read the article I could relate with the Media Consumption section. On a daily basis I consume a tremendous amount of media through Facebook, Twitter, news channels, and many other programs and sites. Obviously, through my consumption of media on applications like Facebook, I tend to consume more fake news than actual credible media. This news sometimes looks real and I fully believe it is real, until I do further research. I thought it was helpful for him to state that people should be skeptical of what they are reading, but not to put the same skepticism on everything that is read. People should look for credibility in the information that

“Individuals and nations owe it to themselves and the world to become informed” . It is important for American citizens to be informed regarding the falsehoods of fake news, as an informed nation would be less susceptible to believing and spreading false information. Within the scope of American society, it is a relatively feasible task to validate the degree of truth in a news story. One manner in which an individual can become more informed in regards to the validity of a specific news source is to use the fact checking resources on Snopes.com. Snopes is a website dedicated to assigning “truth ratings” to articles through the process of first-hand contact with the primary source of a publication, contact with experts in the subject area relevant to the information presented in the article, and a meticulous comparison and contrast with other news outlets . A website such as Snopes should not be relied on entirely however to decipher whether an article is fake news or not. Individuals should also take some time to perform other precautionary actions such as, conducting background research on the authors of news articles,

With the growing concern of “fake news,” public gullibility has come into question from many individuals. How can the public know what is real and what is not when even highly trusted news organizations can’t seem to publish the truth? Is it their fault or are a majority of the world’s people just gullible? In the year 2000, there was a similar problem, “with surveys in the UK reporting 63% of people believing in the paranormal and 67% in astrology” (p. 1147) A survey based study by Preece and Baxter (2000), conducted on the skepticism and gullibility in secondary school students in the United Kingdom. The seven-item study surveyed 2159 students who were grouped into “Key Stage 3 students (11-13 years), through Key Stage 4 (14-16 years), to

In the digital age today, we are constantly surrounded by news. There are thousands and even millions of websites including social media that provides news to us but how do we determine the credibility of these news stories.

The concept of journalism has always been regarded with skepticism. People are not sure which newspapers or news stations to trust. Naturally, the audience gravitates towards mainstream news providers like CNN or The New York Times. These sources, along with many others, have been accepted for their credibility. Recently, however, another source has been capturing the audience’s attention. This source is known as citizen journalism, and its contributions to society have had a huge impact. Whether or not these contributions are credible has become an issue that sparks debate among the audience. This issue is researched in an academic journal called Cynics and Skeptics: Evaluating the Credibility of Mainstream and Citizen Journalism.

“Trust in the news media is being eroded by perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans’ skepticism