Research Guides: Fake News and Evaluating Sources: Home

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Subjects: Anthropology & Archaeology, Global and National Security Policy, International Studies, Linguistics, Political Science, Psychology, Public Health, Sociology, Speech & Hearing

Getting Started Fact-checking: The Four Moves

The excellent ebook Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers recommends four moves or strategies you can follow whenever you encounter a claim you would like to check.

Check for previous work: Look around to see if someone else has already fact-checked the claim or provided a synthesis of research. Google or search the Fact-checking websites listed in this research guide.
Go upstream to the source: Go “upstream” to the source of the claim. Most web content is not original. Get to the original source to understand the trustworthiness of the information.
Read laterally: Read laterally. Once you get to the source of a claim, read what other people say about the source (publication, author, etc.). The truth is in the network.
Circle back: If you get lost, hit dead ends, or find yourself going down an increasingly confusing rabbit hole, back up and start over knowing what you know now. You’re likely to take a more informed path with different search terms and better decisions.

Image Forensics Tools

Image authenticity and prior use

Google Images
Quick way to check how and in what context an image has been shared (and fact checking articles are often among the first results)
TinEye
A more sophisticated reverse image search.

Recognizing photomontage or modified photos

Fotoforensics
Sophisticated analysis of the quality of a photo, especially possible modifications. Includes great tutorials and exercises.
Metadata EXIF
Analyzes metadata attached to photos that may include type of camera or device used, date, location where photo was taken.

Tracing Memes

Memes are images, videos, text, usually ironic or satirical, that becomes viral. These two tools help you track the creation and diffusion of the most well known viral memes.

Know Your Meme
Museum of Hoaxes
Focused on hoaxes including viral images.

Analyzing Video

YouTube Data Viewer
View original upload data and analyze individual screenshots (which you can reverse image search). Sponsored by Amnesty International. Try also Frame by Frame for YouTube a Chrome extension to analyze a video frame by frame and look for out of place details.
Hugin Photo
Creates panorama photos out of a sequence of video - can be useful to ID the location of the video.

Learn more

Evaluating information sources can be a difficult and complicated process. The resources below may serve as guides as you build up your own strategies for determining what sources are trustworthy, valid, and factual.

Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers
Great short ebook with examples and exercises
A Finder's Guide to Facts
This guide was created by National Public Radio (NPR) and lays out a quick test that anyone can apply to information sources to help determine if content is factual.
Breaking News Consumer Handbook: Fake News Edition
This handbook, created by the media analysis radio show On the Media, consists of just eleven questions geared to help any information consumer identify if information sources are factual.
Evaluating Sources in a 'Post-Truth' World
This New York Times article is a practical guide to evaluating sources specifically in the context of "fake news."
Fake News: A Library Resource Round-Up
This site is technically geared toward librarians, but it includes a strong collection of resource links that focus on evaluative strategies in the realm of fake news.
Savvy Info Consumers: Fake News
This handy guide, created by librarians at the University of Washington, provides strategies for quickly evaluating different types of fake news.

Evaluating Information Sources through Context Worksheet
This worksheet was designed specifically for this SUST 134 library session to guide you through strategies for evaluating information context rather than content, specifically focusing on aspects related to source format and qualities related to the author and publishing platform.

Coursera MOOC Class: Making Sense of the News
Sign up to audit and view some of this Coursera online class content for free.

Fact-checking websites

Snopes
Snopes is an independent, self-sufficient web project created by a professional researcher/writer and devoted to fact-checking. It holds the status as the oldest and largest fact-checking site on the Internet.
FactCheck.org
A nonpartisan, nonprofit website that aims to reduce public deception and confusion in U.S. politics. A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
PolitiFact
A fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims made by and in relation to U.S. politics. Run by editors and reporters from the independent newspaper Tampa Bay Times (owned by the not-for-profit Poynter Institute, a non-profit global leader in journalism).

Check out some other fact-checking websites listed here.

Assessing Scientific Journals

Not all scientific journals are the same. One way to check whether a scientific journal is worthy of trust is to check its impact factor, which is based on how many citations a journal's articles receive from articles in other established journals. Several tools rank journals, including:

Journal Citation Reports This link opens in a new window

SJR Scimago Journal & Country Rank

Attribution

Much of the content on this page comes from Poynter's International Factchecking Network's Guide to Fact Checking and Verification for Students as well as UNM Librarian Amy Jankowski's Sustainability Libguide. Thanks!