We are currently in a time period where news is spread around faster than wildfire, this means fake or real news. This is why everyone needs to be aware of how to spot fake news when they come across it. We can thank social media and mainstream media for how quickly any sort of news is spread. For example, one person could send out a tweet on twitter of a false accusation about a person and now all of their followers have seen it and each of their follower’s followers, and so on. According to the TIME official site, all professionals and people “must work together to stand firm against the spread of misinformation” (Menczer, Filippo). However, the real question here is if truth actually matters in a time like this, where false news is spread so effortlessly. The answer is yes. We all need to be updated on what is going on in the world and we need to be educated; the real problem is learning how to tell which news is trustworthy and which is not. There are many ways that we can check a claim to make sure it is true, according to the official NPR website, which is a well-known news source. The techniques that they highlight are: check the domain and URL, read the “about us” section on websites, look at the quotes included and who said them, check the comments, and do a reverse image search (Davis).

            According to the NPR article, it is very important that we pay attention to the actual website itself. For example, we should be looking at the domain and URL because they will reveal how credible a source is. “Sites with such endings like .com.co should make you raise your eyebrows,” we should stick with websites that end in .com, .org, or .edu (Davis). One important example of this difference is the ABC News websites: there is the original website “abcnews.com” and the non-credible, fake website “abcnews.com.co” (Davis). It is also recommended that the reader go over the source’s “About Us” section in order to learn more about the actual site. Reading this will help the researcher learn what type of news the website typically covers and will help them to conclude if they are credible or not, by looking at how long they’ve been reporting and if they are a national site, etc. Under this section we can also learn about the certain individuals that run the site and who their reporters are.

            It is also very important to look at the quotes in the article and research on who said the quotes. If the story has no quotes, then we can assume that it may not be the most trustworthy story because they don’t have a person to quote, or maybe they didn’t even conduct an interview or research on the topic. However, if quotes are included, it is critical that the reader looks at who said the quotes and does extra research to make sure that the words were actually said (if possible) and that the person who said them is a credible and trustworthy figure. (Davis).

            A couple other sections that the reader can focus on to try to learn if a story is fake or not, is the comments and the images included. The comments on an article can be very telling because they may point out a lie or even included a link to a trustworthy source that contains the story on what actually occurred. Another tip that NPR provides is to do a reverse image search. The reader can actually copy and paste an image that is included in the article into a google search and see what comes up. If different stories come up for the same picture, then it is likely that the reporter found this image online and didn’t go out and take it on their own. Meaning the story may be fake as well, because they didn’t actually go out to get their information, they used a computer.

            In conclusion, there is a lot of fake news that is out and about. As an educated public, we just need to make sure that everyone is aware on how to spot the news that is fake and learn which sources we are able to trust.

 

                                                                  Works Cited

Davis, Wynne. “Fake or Real? How to Self-Check the News and Get the Facts.” National Public Radio, Inc. (NPR), 5 Dec. 2016,

           https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/12/05/503581220/fake-or-real-how-to-self-check-the-news-and-get-the-                    facts, Accessed 26 Feb. 2018.

 

Menczer, Filippo. “Why Fake News is so Incredibly Effective.” TIME, 28 Nov. 2016,

            http://time.com/4583475/fake-news-effective/, Accessed 26 Feb. 2018.