LibGuides: * News: Evaluating News Sources

Fake or Legit? Tips and tools for Evaluating Sources

Evaluating information sources:

Checklist for identifying "False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical “News” Sources."
Zimdars, M. (2016). 'False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical “News” Sources.’ (Manuscript). Merrimack College, Department of Communication and Media, North Andover, MA. Recently featured in the Chronicle of Education.
CRAAP Test (Univ. of California, Chico)
Currency? Relevance? Authority? Accuracy? Purpose?
A list of questions to help evaluate information.
Media Bias Chart by Vanessa Otero

Fake News and the Spread of Misinformation
Compilation of studies about fake news by Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
How to separate fact and fiction online (TED Talk)
Video of a TED Talk by Markham Nolan of CBS News on investigative techniques that can be used to verify information in real-time.
A Finder's Guide To Facts (NPR)
How to tell fake news from real news in the post-truth era
Misinformation Review (Harvard Kennedy School)
An open-source, interdisciplinary, scholarly journal focused on all aspects of misinformation and featuring methodologically diverse, peer-reviewed, empirical research and cutting-edge commentary.
Recent News on News Literacy (Center for News Literacy)
Resources and news about "fake news" and news literacy
Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online
Report by Data & Society that reveals why media was vulnerable to radicalized groups online.
Verification Handbook: An ultimate guideline on digital age sourcing
Handbook is a step by step guide for verifying digital content initially created for reporters and emergency responders.

Fact Checking:

Factcheck.org
"A nonpartisan, nonprofit 'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics".
PolitiFact
Run by the Tampa Bay Times (which is owned by journalism school the Poynter Institute), this site checks and ranks political claims
Washington Post Fact Checker
Fact checks political and governmental topics
Wayback Machine
Evaluate web page history using this web archive that captures websites over time and can be used to verify content history and edits.

Evaluating Images:

FotoForensics
Identify parts of an image that may have been modified or “photoshopped”.
Google Reverse Image Search
Upload or use a URL image to check the content history or to see similar images on the web (select the camera icon to search by image).
Google Street View
Identifying the location of a suspicious photo or video is a crucial part of the verification process.
Jeffrey’s Exif Viewer
Upload or enter the URL of an image and view its metadata.
TinEye Reverse Image Search
Upload or enter an image URL to the search bar and see a list of related sites.

Other tools:

AllSides
Provides bias ratings for various media providers
Read Across The Aisle
Mobile application to help you read beyond the narrow perspective of your pre-existing political perspective.
Media Bias/Fact Check
Website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and media sources.
WhoIs
Allows you to look up the owner of an Internet domain.
Hoaxy (beta)
Visualizes how fake news stories and fact-checking stories spread on social media. Hoaxy is a project of the Indiana University Network Science Institute and the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research.
News Use Across Social Media (Pew Research)
Study on political news consumption habits in the U.S.
The Future of Free Speech, Trolls, Anonymity and Fake News Online (Pew Research)
Report on fake news online and the the potential impacts of online social interaction.
Dataminr
The site that many journalists are using to find breaking news. Lots of analysis of words, data to see what is trending.
Media Cloud
A site dedicated to the study of media attention and influence for issues affecting countries around the world. Access our raw data through the public API.