Fact-Checking
What Works to Build Mental Immunity - #13
Fact-checking1 is crucial for evaluating the credibility of information encountered online. In a digital landscape where misinformation and disinformation are rampant, fact-checking helps individuals discern truth from falsehood and make informed decisions.
Applications
Teach lateral reading.2 This is a strategy for investigating who’s behind an unfamiliar online source by leaving the webpage, searching for the source in a new tab, and seeing what various reputable sources have to say about the unknown source. Provide students a mix of legitimate and illegitimate news sources to practice on, and discuss their reasons for deeming a website trustworthy or not.
Introduce students to the SIFT3 method. SIFT stands for Stop; Investigate the source; Find better coverage; and Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context. This is a useful way to remember the key components of fact-checking.
Luckily, we don’t need to do all the fact-checking ourselves, because there are many nonpartisan, professional fact-checking organizations out there; some of these include FactCheck.org, AP Fact Check, Reuters Fact Check, and many more that are tracked by the Duke Reporters' Lab.
Notes
Fact-checking can often feel overwhelming, as it’s not realistic to fact-check every bit of new information we encounter. The ability to fact-check when needed, though, is now an essential life skill. Given that there will always be more information than we can critically fact-check, remind students to maintain a skeptical perspective when consuming news media, especially from sources that are untrustworthy or unfamiliar.
Learn More
“Don't be fooled... fact check!” Fact-checking guide by Melanie Trecek-King of Thinking Is Power
RumorGuard's Five Factors, five factors to consider when evaluating the credibility of a claims
For all the modules in one place, visit our What Works to Build Mental Immunity Website page! See what’s to come and download PDF versions of these modules.
This post is part of our “What Works” series for educators and researchers.
We are open to incorporating feedback into these modules before we publish them on our website. Please comment on this post to provide suggestions. We’re particularly interested in additional applications, resources, and readings. All constructive feedback is welcomed. Thank you!
for a more comprehensive guide to fact-checking see Don't be fooled... fact check! from ThinkingIsPower.com (Melanie Trecek-King)
Civic Online Reasoning, Sort Fact from Fiction Online with Lateral Reading
Research Guides at Clark College, Evaluating Information: SIFT (The Four Moves)