Journalism EssentialsA limited series on media literacy and journalism skills from The School of The New York Times
Greetings, friends. My name is Ted Kim, and I oversee the newsroom’s early careers team at The New York Times. With the world awash in information, it seems harder than ever to separate truth from fiction. For those seeking accurate news, navigating this digital terrain is proving more and more difficult. Of course, the sharing of inaccurate information that is then taken up as truth is a problem that has existed for many years. But digital tools, especially social media and artificial intelligence, have made the problem far more pervasive and harder to detect. I encounter growing questions and concerns from students on this topic. So my team and I are using this newsletter, the latest in a limited series about news literacy, to talk about the challenges of misinformation and disinformation and how to confront them. A number of nonprofit organizations have long worked to bolster digital literacy among young adults. My colleague Bill Ruthhart, a senior early careers editor who was a longtime political reporter, helped pull together resources from the Digital Inquiry Group, an effort founded from research at Stanford University; the MediaWise initiative at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies; and the News Literacy Project. All have offerings for teaching digital literacy, and we’ve drawn upon some of their best tips. As for this series, we’ve already touched on fact-checking and journalism’s role in society. With the school year winding down for many of you, we thought that we’d take a little break, with an eye toward restarting it in the fall. We hope you find this series useful. Let us know what you think. What is misinformation and disinformation?False and deceptive information that spreads quickly online often falls into two categories: misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation is the spreading of false or misleading content, which might not be intentional. Misinformation can be shared by someone who has a genuine connection to an issue and is trying to help but is unknowingly spreading information that is not true. Disinformation is the intentional spreading of untruths to deceive and sway people. Disinformation often aims to outrage or persuade people toward a particular point of view.
Here are some steps you can take to find out whether something you are viewing or reading is misinformation or disinformation. Determine what is true.1. Consider the sourceThe first question to ask is: Who is behind this information? If the source is an individual on social media, is that person an expert in the topic? If not, did that person cite sources for what was shared? If the information is from an organization or a website, is it a trusted source on the issue? If the source does not appear to have expertise, are there original documents or links that support the information? 2. Look for evidenceIf you are unsure whether a source is reliable, consider what evidence was cited to support a claim. Were documents or news reports used? Does the source share links to original material? If so, follow those links to determine if the original source of the information is credible. If the source does not offer any evidence for the claim, look for supporting information elsewhere. 3. Use lateral readingIf you do not immediately trust the source, try lateral reading, a concept developed by a team of researchers at Stanford University. Lateral reading involves searching elsewhere to assess the trustworthiness of a source or the accuracy of information. Place the name of the source or a key claim from the information into a search engine to determine the knowledge or expertise of the source. You can use news stories in your lateral reading by clicking on the “news” tab in a search engine to see what news organizations have reported about the source or the information. Often, news organizations will offer fact-checks of misinformation and disinformation that have gone viral. Watch out for deepfakes.Misinformation and disinformation can come in the form of deepfakes, which are videos or images that have been created with A.I. Deepfakes often falsely portray people or scenes to generate outrage or to promote a falsehood. A reverse image search is a tool that can help spot deepfake photos by showing you where the photo first appeared and whether it has been distorted or used out of context. This can also help you determine when the image first appeared. Google and TinEye both have widely used tools to conduct reverse image searches. A.I. videos are becoming harder to detect, but some have been known to distort body parts and facial expressions, or to use audio that is not in sync with the video. Some A.I. videos can also lack detail. If you suspect a video is fake, look closely for these signs. For photos and videos, there also are tools that aid in identifying A.I. generated content, though they are not completely accurate. If an image or a video is shared rapidly, you can also use lateral reading to see if it has been debunked by a news report or whether it has been shared by credible sources.
Share carefully.It is good practice to apply many of these tips when deciding what to share online. Before sharing something, particularly if it stirs strong feelings, check to make sure the information is credible. Another strategy is to use “click restraint,” a practice recommended by Stanford researchers who have specialized in disinformation. Click restraint is resisting the impulse to click on the top result in an online search and instead reading through the full list and determining which results are credible. Once you scan the results, you can click (and share) selectively.
Develop a healthy digital diet.Whether you are consuming news or entertainment content, try to seek a variety of sources for your information. This will help reduce your reliance on social media algorithms to feed what you read and view. For example, if something catches your interest in a social media platform, try searching for more about that subject in a search engine and practice click restraint. Consider downloading a variety of news media apps and visiting those sources directly to read stories and watch videos. Another approach is to read laterally and use the “news” tab in search engines when looking for information on a particular person or topic.
Here are some resources.
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