#LibraryNews - Loras College Library at Loras College

logo for national news literacy week Does it feel like it’s getting harder to separate fact from fiction? National News Literacy Week is upon us, and the library would like to mark the occasion by providing a few tips to help you become a news literate person. We are all living in a complex information landscape, and the library is here to help.
What is news literacy? Well, one definition is:

The ability to determine the credibility of news and other content, to identify different types of information, and to use the standards of authoritative, fact-based journalism to determine what to trust, share and act on.

Tip #1
Slow down and recognize when information is prompting an emotional response. If a news story seems to be deliberately is making you angry, beware. It’s time to dig deeper - it’s possible you are being manipulated by a dubious news item.

Tip #2
Differentiate between news and opinion. If you see labels like “editorial,” “column,” “commentary,” “punditry” then you’ve found an opinion piece, which may also be distinguished by use of the first person, sarcasm, and (potentially) exaggeration. Related: watch out for satirical news sites, like The Onion, and paid advertising masquerading as news. Sometime these items will be labeled “Sponsored” news. Think you have a handle on it? Take this quiz: How well can you tell factual from opinion statements?

Tip #3
Recognize “Bad Actors” like Trolls, Sockpuppets, and Bots.

Trolls post offensive, inflammatory, highly partisan content to provoke people and create conflict. To identify them, look at the history of the account. Does it regularly post content that is inflammatory, offensive, or highly partisan? Are the images designed to anger or offend? Do posts on the account use disparaging language directed at specific people? These are all warning signs on accounts by trolls.

Sockpuppets are imposter accounts. False online accounts are used to influence opinion about a person or organization with the intention of making it seem like the account is not affiliated in any way with that person or organization.

A bot is a computer program that is designed to post content automatically according to a set of guidelines, without human intervention. Use a bot-detector like Botometer https://botometer.osome.iu.edu/ to check the activity of a Twitter account. Higher scores mean more bot-like activity.

Tip #4
Do lateral reading or fact-checking. Do a google search on the news item and try to find independent confirmation of the story. Other fact-checking resources:
▪   Politifact https://www.politifact.com
▪   Factcheck.org https://factcheck.org
▪   Lead Stories https://leadstories.com/
▪   Snopes https://www.snopes.com/
▪   Internet Meme Database https://knowyourmeme.com/

Tip #5
Use reverse-image search to verify photos. Out-of-context and doctored images can fool and mislead. Photos containing signs, t-shirts, baseball hats are easy to photoshop. Reverse-image search resources:
▪   Google – 1) right-click on the image and click on “search google for image” or 2) open tab to https://images.google.com and crop image in search bar
▪   Tineye https://www.tineye.com
▪   ImgOps https://imgops.com

Feeling overwhelmed? Not to worry. A final take-away? Always get your news from a variety of sources!

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Native American Heritage Month 2024

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National News Literacy Week: January 24-28, 2022

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