News Literacy, Fall 2021: Week 14
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News Literacy, Fall 2021: Week 14
- 13. âFake newsâ is not new
- 14. In the digital age, YOUare in charge of determining what is reliable ⌠and what is not
- 17. ď They amplify the power to alert, divert, and connect Advantages of news online and on social media ď Stories can direct you to sources and evidence ď Audio-visual and interactive features add context, enhance understanding ď Ability to search a massive archive of stories
- 21. Deconstruction Is deconstruction Step 1 Summarize the main points, comparing headline to the story Step 2 Did the reporter open the freezer? Is the evidence direct or indirect? Step 3 Evaluate the sources using IMVAIN Step 4 Does the reporter make his/her work transparent? Step 5 Does the reporter place the facts, the story, in context? Step 6 Are the key questions answered? (Who-What-When-Where-Why-How) Step 7 Is the story fair? Is balance called for? What about fair play and language?
- 22. And the whole point is⌠Is it actionable? ď Can you reach a conclusion? ď Can you take an action? ď Can you make a judgment? ď Should you share this information?
- 23. Why digital-age headlines are different Step 1 Summarize the main points, comparing headline to the story 1. HELLO, SEO Google loves headlines full of search terms. 2. CLICK BAIT Headlines written to sell, not tell the story.
- 24. Step 1 Summarize the main points, comparing headline to the story PRINT WEB MOBILE Charles Dingle of Brooklyn held in crime spree at Herbieâs Bar in Jamaica Guess what cops found in Queens strip club
- 25. Step 2 Did the reporter open the freezer? Is the evidence direct or indirect?
- 26. Step 2 Did the reporter open the freezer? Is the evidence direct or indirect?
- 28. Step 2 Did the reporter open the freezer? Is the evidence direct or indirect?
- 29. Yes, the digital age transformed the landscape for news producers and news consumers. But one constant remains. You need to ask a two-word question: Says Step 3 Evaluate the sources using IMVAIN
- 30. I-M-V-A-I-N THE SAME SYSTEM CAN HELP YOU EVALUATE DIGITAL CONTENT Named(Fullyidentified) Authoritative/Informed (Knowledgeable) Independent (Impartial) Verifiable(Factual) Multiple(Corroborated)
- 31. Would you share this?
- 32. I-M-V-A-I-N A SYSTEM FOR EVALUATING THE RELIABILITY OF SOURCES Independent (Impartial)
- 33. I-M-V-A-I-N A SYSTEM FOR EVALUATING THE RELIABILITY OF SOURCES Independent (Impartial)
- 34. I-M-V-A-I-N A SYSTEM FOR EVALUATING THE RELIABILITY OF SOURCES Independent (Impartial) Multiple(Corroborated)
- 35. I-M-V-A-I-N A SYSTEM FOR EVALUATING THE RELIABILITY OF SOURCES Independent (Impartial) Verifiable(Factual) Multiple(Corroborated)
- 36. I-M-V-A-I-N A SYSTEM FOR EVALUATING THE RELIABILITY OF SOURCES Named(Fullyidentified) Authoritative/Informed (Knowledgeable)
- 37. I-M-V-A-I-N A SYSTEM FOR EVALUATING THE RELIABILITY OF SOURCES Named(Fullyidentified) Authoritative/Informed (Knowledgeable)
- 38. I-M-V-A-I-N A SYSTEM FOR EVALUATING THE RELIABILITY OF SOURCES Named(Fullyidentified) Authoritative/Informed (Knowledgeable)
- 41. Step 4 Is it transparent?
- 42. Step 5 Whatâs the context?
- 43. Step 6 Are the key questions answered? (Who-What-When-Where-Why-How)
- 45. Step 7 Is it fair?
Editor's Notes
- Today we explore how the deconstruction techniques we learned over the past two weeks can be applied to digital-age media â from social media posts to viral videos and websites. We also look at the impact that the power and perils of digital-age media have had on our politics and our quest for reliable information.
- When news breaks, information and images hit it constantly, coming from multiple directions. Do we know who Solveig Godeluck is? Do we speak French? If not, we may be skeptical at first. Here twitter account is verified, and she describes herself as a journalist, but can we be sure? Colin Campbell at least credits his photo. He says he a reporter for Yahooo! News.
- Hereâs some video from an unverified account.
- Patrick Galey works for the news outlet AFP. His account is verified.
- This video comes from a recognized news outlet in the United States.
- Here we have reporting from AFP news agency, not just raw information.
- Joseph Curl does not have a verified account, but a quick Google search shows that he writes for the Washington Times. Reliable, right? Well, it turns out that the picture he tweeted is from Notre Dame basilica in Montreal, Canada. Some people on twitter had fun responding to Curlâs gaffe. (He has not deleted the incorrect tweet.)
- Hereâs Glenn Beck concocting the perfect conspiracy theoryâone that cannot be disproven because you wonât âfind out about it.â Disgusting nonsense.
- This BuzzFeed News âTrackbackâ video debunks the misinformation and confirms information surrounding the fire.
- Thereâs no shortage of mis and disinformation circulating at any given time. What happens when hoaxers decide to doctor a real news story to spread chaos and misinformation in the aftermath of a major mass shooting? It might seem far-fetched, but this is exactly what happened to Monique O. Madan, a Miami Herald breaking news reporter, who last week was inundated with strange requests from parents and students at W.R. Thomas Middle School in Miami-Dade County asking whether their school was under threat. The rumor was spreading like wildfire on Snapchat, a favorite among teenagers and a platform that prides itself on being relatively immune to fake news. It also comes at a sensitive time, following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, less than 50 miles from W.R. Thomas, in which 17 people were killed and several were wounded. A Miami Herald story from last week was photoshopped to carry a different headline, text, and quotes from the school's principal and county official, while keeping both the Herald's masthead and Madan's byline, with great consequences to their reputation. Dozens of worried parents and students started flooding the journalist's inbox and the school's landline, checking whether the rumor was true. Janet Perez told CNN she received those screenshots from her niece, who attends W.R. Thomas. https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/23/us/fake-screenshots-trnd/index.html
- Malicious lies and hate speech also spread far and wide. A search for the word âJewsâ displayed 11,696 posts with the hashtag â#jewsdid911,â claiming that Jews had orchestrated the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Other hashtags on Instagram referenced Nazi ideology, including the number 88, an abbreviation used for the Nazi salute âHeil Hitler.â The Instagram posts demonstrated a stark reality. Over the last 10 years, Silicon Valleyâs social media companies have expanded their reach and influence to the furthest corners of the world. But it has become glaringly apparent that the companies never quite understood the negative consequences of that influence nor what to do about it â and that they cannot put the genie back in the bottle. âSocial media is emboldening people to cross the line and push the envelope on what they are willing to say to provoke and to incite,â said Jonathan Albright, research director at Columbia Universityâs Tow Center for Digital Journalism. âThe problem is clearly expanding.â The repercussions of the social media companiesâ inability to handle disinformation and hate speech have manifested themselves abundantly in recent days. Cesar Sayoc Jr., who was charged last week with sending explosive devices to prominent Democrats, appeared to have been radicalized online by partisan posts on Twitter and Facebook. Robert D. Bowers, who is accused of killing 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, posted about his hatred of Jews on Gab, a two-year-old social network. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/technology/hate-on-social-media.html
- Fake news may not be new, but misinformation and disinformation are omnipresent and more difficult to spot because of blurring of the lines. This means that the burden on news consumers to stop lies in their tracks and spread reliable news is greater than ever.
- Who can take on the fake news writers, the political fans and foes who tweet and retweet and join the botnets and trolls spreading lies? You can. You â the critical thinking savvy news consumer. Those who expect Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook or Twitter to take responsibility for deciding whatâs reliable and whatâs not not only abdicate the right to make that judgment, they are inviting the perils that come with doing so. So letâs look at how you can not only decide what to trust, but also to play a part in helping other news consumers find reliable information.
- Brooke Gladstone, co-host of NPRâs âOn the Media,â interviewed Melissa Zimdars, assistant professor of communication and media at Merrimack College, who compiled a list of more than a hundred problematic news sites, along with tips for sorting the truthful from the troublesome. These 11 tips emerged from that interview.
- Yes, there are challenges, but we should acknowledge, and take advantage of, the significant benefits of living in the information age.
- New tools connect us in news ways, enabling ProPublica to lead this collaborative effort to collect information and report on hate crimes throughout the United States. Journalists get involved. Victims and witnesses play a role. https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/hatecrimes
- Consider this page on the New York Times website, covering the massive fires sweeping California. Live, by the minute updates, keep us up to speed on a rapidly changing situation⌠https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/us/california-fires-kincade-getty.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
- Links to other stories add details and context.
- So, to find reliable reporting that makes the best of the new tools available to us, and to be able to spot mis and disinformation, we should apply the steps of deconstruction. The problem with lists of tips like the ones offered by the Washington Post and On the Media is that the methods and tendencies of those who produce disinformation are constantly changing. News Literacy and our deconstruction techniques offer an approach grounded in time-tested concepts. Whether youâre evaluating a tweet, an Instagram photo or a viral video, all of these steps can help you decide whatâs reliable. Letâs take a look at two of them . . .
- AgainâŚWHATâS THE POINT? THE SEARCH FOR RELIABLE INFORMATION OhâŚand a good grade on the final, which is all deconstruction.
- Letâs take it from the top â headlines. There are two things you should know about headlines in the digital world.
- Digital headlines are designed to do one of two things â raise the storyâs search-engine value or make you want to click it. How would this classic tabloid front page headline have been written to optimize search results or clicks?
- This claim by Jack Posobiec on Twitter? I wonder how many of the 7000 people who retweeted this and 17,000 who liked this actually went and read the Constitution. Itâs not true at all. Just look at history: Bill Clinton was impeached by the House and acquitted in the Senate, and he was entitled to run again. (Andrew Johnson was also impeached and acquitted, but he chose not to run again. Anyway, that was before there were term limits for presidents.) For those who wouldnât know, Posobiec is a notorious right-wing troll. The blue checkmark next to his name does not indicate that heâs a reliable source of informationâit only means that this is in fact Jack Posobiecâs twitter account. https://mobile.twitter.com/JimSwiftDC/status/1179150041749086210
- Contrast the previous tweet with this BuzzFeed News post on Instagram. Itâs one of those unusual stories that we might dismiss at first glanceâŚ.
- But follow the link and you see the very Secret Service documents under discussion. So we should evaluate the evidence we encounter on social media. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/eminem-secret-service-trump-ivanka-tmz
- But be careful with inferences. Follow these posts down the rabbit hole. Andrew Potter connects isolated events and argues that theyâre evidence that an alien attack is imminent.
- One of the first lessons of the semester â A story is only as reliable as the sources it is based on â applies to digital-age media as well. And that means source evaluation is at the very heart of deconstruction â and never more so than when evaluating social media. Yes, IMVAIN applies even to a viral video.
- Every tweet has a source. Every website is put up by someone. Use the same tools you use to judge the reliability of news sources to decide how much trust to invest in the content you see online.
- A viral video purportedly shows a man jumping from a plane 9,000 feet above the earth with no parachute through a small opening in a roof and onto a trampoline. Knowing what you know today, would you share it?
- Letâs apply the IMVAIN system to evaluate the source of the information to determine its reliability. Is the video from an independent source or is their self-interest involved? Twitter and Facebook are great tools for launching a viral video. Looking through the many tweets, we found an odd one with the title âThis Really Happened at our California Park.â An Internet search turned up various articles reporting the improbable jump, and several mentioned Sector 6, a trampoline park opening in New Orleans. It has a Facebook page, where one of the videos shows the skydive â and includes the line âThis Really Happened at our California Park.â
- And this version of the video ends with the logos of the new park and its sister site in California. Whatever else this video is, itâs not independent. It appears to have been created to promote the new venue.
- Multiple or single? The question of corroboration. On the surface, the answer might be multiple because stories about the video can be found on numerous websites, including the London-based Daily Mailâs news site. But they all show the same video. You wonât find any independent coverage of the event anywhere. Not the New York Times or the L.A. Times or CNN. If you were staging this dramatic event, would you forget to alert the media?
- Video, News Lit teaches us, is the most powerful form of verification. Seeing is believing, right? The power of this video is whatâs drawing all the attention. But is it authentic? There are no obvious signs of manipulation. But one online commenter noticed something odd. The spot where the video signal dramatically halts, putting the error messages âConnection Lostâ and âEnd of streamâ on screen mimics a common error screen from the popular game Minecraft â right down to the odd capitalization. Coincidence? Not likely âŚ
- Is our source authoritative, informed ⌠or even identified? No one is named in the video. No names, no credentials. The closest we get is the jumper identified only as âTravis.â Another interesting choice. The closest thing to this video on You Tube is a 7-year-old video featuring extreme sports athlete Travis Pastrama, who jumped from a plane with no parachute but used two companions with chutes to slow his descent. It was a stunt created to promote Red Bull. Would he do something even more daring and not be fully identified? Wouldnât his home page or Twitter account mention the event or show the video. Thereâs no mention on either, nor can you find any mention of the jump on skydiving news sites.
- So who made the video? The final scene showing Travis being celebrated after the jump flashes an ID â âSky Newz viralâ No such news organization exists. Itâs an obvious play on the name of Britain-based Sky News, a news and entertainment company.
- Not independent. Not multiple. Verification is in doubt. No authoritative source in sight. No real names. Would you share it as news?
- Snopes eventually caught up with the hoax.
- Wait a second. Is this like the shark who keeps turning up when hurricanes hit? Or maybe this time, itâs for real. What do you think? <<CLICK FOR VIDEO>> Yup. This one was real â no trampoline, though.
- Is transparency evident? Does the person at least cite a source or piece of evidence? In this case, no. âHearingâ? From where? From whom?
- We saw earlier in the semester that Jayden Smith shared a picture of the Amazon rainforest on fire. What about this picture of the Amazon shared by Leonardo DiCaprio? This, too, is an old photo, not taken during the recent fires. And the claim that the Amazon produces 20 percent of the worldâs oxygen is not true. Leonardo DiCaprio shared another with his 34 million followers that showed a verdant thicket of trees engulfed in smoke. The singer Ricky Martin and President Emmanuel Macron of France also shared that image, but none identified its source. That image appears in a stock photo catalog, which credits it to the photographer Loren McIntyre, an explorer and photojournalist who died in 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/world/americas/amazon-rainforest-fire-photos.html?auth=login-email&login=email
- Is this a thing? https://heartwhispers.weebly.com/cancer.html
- Letâs read laterallyâcheck the claims about baking soda against credible reporting on the subject. In 2011 the Medical Board of California began an undercover investigation after concerns were raised by a woman treated there. Investigators were able to establish the prognosis of 15 cancer patients treated at the ranch - none of them outlived it. One patient, Genia Vanderhaeghen, died from congestive heart failure - fluid around the heart - while being treated. Young told us he was "out of town" at the time. According to an invoice we obtained, she had been given 33 intravenous sodium bicarbonate drips, each charged at $550 (ÂŁ448), over 31 days. Some were administered by Young himself. Last year Young was convicted of two charges of practising medicine without a license, and now faces up to three years in prison. In court it was revealed that he is not a medical doctor and bought his PhD from a diploma mill. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38650739
- Weâve encountered the Young Turks before in our lesson on news vs. opinion. This outlet covers the news from a particular perspective, and that perspective is evident in this tweet. They were glad to see Ted Cruz humiliated, even in his electoral victory. Itâs clear that Ted Cruz (and other Republicans) wonât get a fair shake with the Young Turks.
- So now that you have the tools and techniques to help separate reliable information from rumor, real news from fake news, itâs time for you to put it to use. And itâs not enough to be a savvy news consumer â you need to apply your critical thinking skills to another role as well â the role of news producer.