Finding And Fighting Fakes

Word matters and is the foundation for dialogue and democracy and so is trust. Thus, the phenomenon “Fake News” understood as propaganda, lies, disinformation and fake factory stories are serious threats to our democracies. The Nordic Council of Ministers urges for finding ways to meet this challenge and is launching a booklet to create a debate on how to counter fakes and build trust in words and facts. The booklet is based upon results from a meeting in September 2017 of a high-level group of key experts on the topic and in particular from four experts contributing by focusing on media and information literacy, ethical standards and quality journalism to be among the best tools to counter fakes. This booklet will be launched at the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day 2018 in Accra asking for international feedback on its recommendations.

Teaching fact checking and verification is an essential part of journalism education. When a confusing media environment includes statements like “Truth is not truth” and “The president offered alternative facts,” students need to go beyond traditional reporting standards. They need to be trained to consider the presentation of reality in deciding if a statement is misleading or patently false. Detecting Deception applies the concepts of logical argumentation to supplement the verification techniques that are the stock and trade of any media professional. Pithy and practical, Amanda Sturgill draws from present day news examples to help students recognize the most common bad arguments people make. Detecting Deception is an essential tool for training future journalists to build stories that recognize faulty arguments and hold their subjects to a higher standard.

Critical thinking and online reading need to go hand in hand—but they often don’t. Students click, swipe, and believe because they don’t know how to do otherwise. At times, so do we. And that’s a problem. Fighting Fake News combats this challenge by helping you model how to read, myth-bust, truth-test, and respond in ways that lead to wisdom rather than reactivity. No matter what content you teach, the lessons showcased here provide engaging, collaborative reading and discussion experiences so students can: Notice how teacher and peers read digital content, to be mindful of how various reading pathways influence perception Identify the author background, the website sponsor, and other evidence that help set a piece in context Stress-test the facts by evaluating news sources, reading laterally, and other critical reading strategies Use "Reader’s Rules of Notice" to learn to identify common rhetorical devices used to influence the reader Be aware of how for-profit social media platforms feed on our responses to narrow rather than widen our reading landscape We are still in the wild west era of the digital age, scrambling to impart a safer, ethical framework for evaluating information. Thankfully, it distills to one mission: teach students (and ourselves) how to think critically, and we will forever have the tools to fight fake news.

Educators have long struggled to teach students to be critical consumers of the information that they encounter. This struggle is exacerbated by the amount of information available thanks to the Internet and mobile devices. Students must learn how to determine whether or not the information they are accessing is reputable. Fighting Fake News! focuses on applying critical thinking skills in digital environments while also helping students and teachers to avoid information overload. According to a 2017 Pew Research report, we are now living in a world where 67% of people report that they get their “news” from social media. With the lessons and activities in this book, students will be challenged to look at the media they encounter daily to learn to deepen and extend their media literacy and critical thinking skills. Now more than ever, teachers need the instruction in Fighting Fake News! to teach students how to locate, evaluate, synthesize, and communicate information. Grades 4-6

With each passing day the potential reach of a single false news story—and its ability to negatively impact all of us—grows in both size and scope. Although politicians, activists, and ordinary citizens regularly complain about deceptive or biased news reports, they tend to define fake news as anything with which they happen to disagree, thus compounding the problem even further. Seeking to bring some much-needed clarity to the subject, journalist David G. McAfee documents the myriad definitions of "fake news" and its various incarnations throughout history, from ideologically motivated disinformation operations to commercially motivated misinformation campaigns. Demonstrating that we are all culpable in the creation of the current pandemic, he presents a number of practical and actionable suggestions for combating it. In the end, however, he argues that each of us, no matter our political bent, have an important role to play in curbing the insidious spread and most dangerous effects of fake news.

"Journalist David G. McAfee documents the myriad definitions of "fake news" and its various incarnations throughout history, from ideologically motivated disinformation operations to commercially motivated misinformation campaigns, and he presents a number of practical and actionable suggestions for combating it"--