TAMPA, Fla. — It’s 2023… and the majority of people aren’t reading the news from the paper off the front porch but instead on their smartphones with an instant connection to everything happening across the world in real-time. It’s a blessing… that can also be deceiving.
As part of our E.W. Scripps News Literacy Week, we want to highlight ways people can verify what they see on social media and the legitimacy of online news services.
“There is a lot of misinformation spreading on social media and online platforms,” explained Gabrielle Settles, who is a fact checker at Politifact.
She said there’s a lot she does that anyone can do-- such as something called a ‘lateral search.’
“You're going to be looking for ‘Okay, who is telling me this information? Is it a reputable source? Am I able to find it in other places?’” she advised.
That simply means pulling out a quote or keywords and doing a quick Google search to see if other sources can back up the information.
You can even do it with photos or screenshots of videos -- just ‘reverse image google search’ to see if the content is real or questionable.
If you click around enough, reputable sources will reference or link where they got the information and you should be able to track down the original source.
Fact-checking trending posts on social media is something we do every day at ABC Action News.
“At the top of the page of Twitter right now, there's a major league baseball player trending, and it's all about a trade,” we asked Digital Executive Producer Tim Kephart to show us how to verify a trending topic.
“What you have to do is look at who is tweeting it. ESPN reporter. Okay, an ESPN reporter, you can probably take that to the bank. Look at the next one that’s coming in. All right, columnist at the New York Post, solid another one, USA Today sports. Okay, you've got three, solid, reputable sources right now. You can say this is going on; this is actually happening,” Kephart explained.
However, we understand that the definition of a reputable news source can be subjective. We asked Politifact how people can identify a trustworthy source -- aside from their own opinions.
“Again, you look at what other sources are telling you about that story,” Settles said, “And you can also tell that by the sources that they use.”
When checking a specific website, there are a few red flags you can look for:
- No name of the reporter that wrote it
- Lots of typos or missing words
- paragraphs that look copied and pasted with no attribution
Keep in mind that a news company with an established journalistic code of conduct found on its website is a good sign that sources used are trustworthy.
“What professional journalists do that may be unique from just other people who are blogging or posting on social media,” Hannah Covington with the News Literacy Project said. “When a journalist receives a tip or, you know, finds out about some piece of potentially newsworthy information, they still verify and need to verify that information before it can be published.
Any tech expert will tell you that social media is based on algorithms that feed you content based on what you and others in your circle interact with, so our advice is to follow verified, trustworthy, and unbiased accounts.
“If you follow reporters, journalists, news organizations like the Associated Press, Reuters, New York Times, New York Post… that's when you're going to get information that is quality and that you should trust,” Kephart concluded.
When scrolling social media, think of yourself behind the eyes of a journalist or even a detective, question it -- until you can prove it.
To view a tip sheet for verifying legit information from the News Literacy Project, click here.
If you're not sure if information is accurate, you can request Politifact to fact check it here.
You can also find more in-depth explanations on regulated content on many platforms.
If you’re not sure, there are some tools online that you can use to vet articles.
For Twitter, you can useBotometer, which checks the activity of a Twitter account and gives it a score. Higher scores mean more bot-like activity.
Grin calculates a user’s “credibility score” for Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube.
