Fake news

But is it true?

How do we know that this article is true? If we need to develop a reliable scepticism to what we read in the internet, we should apply it consistently. Accordingly, the task when reading the handout involves identifying what aspects of a news report make it 'convincing' - in other words, that make us tend to accept what it says as true. 'Convincing' has two important features: elements may be (a) believable, and (b) checkable. 

believable - items of information in a report may strike us as... likely ... probable ... vivid ... impressive. This means that the items fit with the view that we already have of the situation / context / subject of the news report, either logically ("likely ... probable") or imaginatively ("vivid ... impressive").

checkable - items of information may be cross-checked with other sources, and taken as true if the same information is confirmed elsewhere. This is fundamental good practice among professional journalists - no story should be taken as true until it has been verified by at least two sources.

And notice that not everything that is 'believable' is 'checkable' - good journalism often contains the subjective experience of the journalist, which may indeed appear in an honest report of what happened, but which may not appear in any other equally honest account.

The two texts supplied in this page are complementary: Fake news 1 gives an explanation of how news is faked in a specific case, and is in itself an example of a news report which should be checked for credibility; and Fake news 2 gives a distilled series of suggestions about how one recognises fake news in the first place.

Below are some suggestions for using this material:-

Step 1 ... give out the first page, the extract from the news report ... get the students to read it, then discuss details of vocabulary and phrasing.

Step 2 ... elicit a summary of the key points of the report - what stories were produced, how, by whom, for which market, and how the money was made. Have an initial discussion about what this story contributes to our view of how the internet influences how we form a view of the world.

Step 3 ... give out the second page, the worksheet, which raises the question 'But is this story true?' - and if so, 'How do we judge it to be true?'. Get the students to work through the examples of details, deciding whether each is 'believable' or 'checkable' ... and most importantly, get them to explain and argue why they have made each decision.

[There are no markscheme of 'correct answers': the basic answers should be reasonably evident anyway, but the concepts of 'believable' and 'checkable' overlap and are debateable ... so debate them with the students.]

Step 4 ... expanding on the idea of 'checkable', get them to do some checking - to Google some key terms from the story, and see if they are confirmed from other sources, and if so, how precisely. This could well be a small-group activity, leading to reports back, and finally a discussion about how 'true' the whole story is.

Step 5 ... finally, raise the whole principle of the importance of 'truth' in news reporting - does it matter? ... how much? ... why? One would hope that the students would see that truth does indeed matter, for the fundamental reasons set out in the introduction above.

It is worth noting the dates of the two texts in the two handouts. The first, the BBC report, seems to have broken the story to start with, on 5 December 2016 ... and the second, from NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, is a development from the initial story - it consists of spin-off / commentary / extension.