This short guide provides the questions to ask and identifies the pitfalls to avoid to help you get behind news stories that use statistics.
Evaluation Video - Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose
Fact Check
Duke Reporters' Lab (Stanford School of Public Policy)The Reporters’ Lab explores new forms of journalism, including fact-checking, which is growing around the world, empowering democracies and holding governments accountable, and structured journalism, which creates new forms of storytelling and beat reporting.
FactCheckWe are a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.
Fact Checker (Washington Post)The purpose of this Web site, and an accompanying column in the Sunday print edition of The Washington Post, is to “truth squad” the statements of political figures regarding issues of great importance, be they national, international or local.
Full Fact (UK)Full Fact is the UK’s independent factchecking charity.
HealthNewsReviewHealthNewsReview.org only reviews news stories and news releases that include a claim of efficacy about: Specific treatments, tests, products or procedures. So, the stories may be about: Drugs or devices; Vitamins or nutritional supplements; Diagnostic and screening tests; Dietary recommendations; Surgical procedures; and Psychotherapy/mental health interventions.
Hoax-SlayerThe goal of the Hoax-Slayer Website is to help make the Internet a safer, more pleasant and more productive environment by: Debunking email and Internet hoaxes; Thwarting Internet scammers; Educating web users about email and Internet security issues; and Combating spam.
OpenSecretsWe pursue our mission largely through our award-winning website, OpenSecrets.org, which is the most comprehensive resource for federal campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis available anywhere. And for other organizations and news media, the Center's exclusive data powers their online features tracking money in politics
PolitiFactChecks the truthfulness of news stories' and politicians' claims and comments.
SnopesA nonpartisan fact checking site for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.
Identifying Misinformation, Fake News, Alternative Facts
How to Spot Fake News (IFLA)IFLA has made this infographic with eight simple steps (based on FactCheck.org’s 2016 article How to Spot Fake News) to discover the verifiability of a given news-piece in front of you.
Fake or Real? How to self-check the news and get the facts"Stopping the proliferation of fake news isn't just the responsibility of the platforms used to spread it. Those who consume news also need to find ways of determining if what they're reading is true. We offer several tips..." -- via NPR
How Fake News goes Viral: A Case Study"Eric Tucker [...] had just about 40 Twitter followers. But his recent tweet about paid protesters being bused to demonstrations against President-elect Donald J. Trump fueled a nationwide conspiracy theory — one that Mr. Trump joined in promoting. [...] Here, The New York Times deconstructs how Mr. Tucker’s now-deleted declaration on Twitter the night after the election turned into a fake-news phenomenon." -- via New York Times
False, Misleading, Click-baity, and/or Satirical "News" SourcesA list of sources labeled with tags identifying problems associated with the source. The list does not include mainstream media sources, because they are well known. Created by Melissa Zimdars, Assistant Professor of Communication & Media.
Digital Resource Center (Center for News Literacy)This Digital Resource Center is all about sharing the accumulating wisdom and materials of the News Literacy teaching community, which works to strengthen democracy by teaching students to pluck reliable information from the daily media tsunami.
Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world"We were guaranteed a free press, We were not guaranteed a neutral or a true press. We can celebrate the journalistic freedom to publish without interference from the state. We can also celebrate our freedom to share multiple stories through multiple lenses. But it has always been up to the reader or viewer to make the reliability and credibility decisions. It is up to the reader or viewer to negotiate truth." --via School Library Journal
