Fact-Checking: So Easy a Caveman Can Do it
An Internal Solution to an External Issue
Timothée Chalamet articulated how many of us Gen Zers feel when he said “it’s tough to be alive now. I think societal collapse is in the air” at a recent press conference. And let’s face it, there are not many global issues that we as individuals have agency or leverage in tackling, such as the climate crisis, Supreme Court rulings, inflation, and the evergrowing housing crisis. But what if I told you that sights aren’t nearly as bleak in the battle that scholars and media experts call “the infodemic” “the post-truth era” or “the misinformation age.”
We are Complicit in the Media Cycle
As media consumers, it’s natural to perceive ourselves as the innocent bystanders, the victims of the information wasteland. And many are quick to support content moderation and prescribe downright censorship as the only feasible resolution to this complex issue. But, sadly, the solution is not as simple as removing the misinformation or constructing an information environment focused on quality and not quantity. What this means is that while misinformation is an external issue, the solution is internal. Furthermore, while we may view ourselves as innocent bystanders, this is far from the truth. Whether we like it or not, we are active engagers in the dissemination of media. Our social media likes & shares, conversations, and heated political debates at the dinner table are all examples of our role as consumers. The ASU News Co/Lab stresses the importance of our role as consumers, stating:
“We know from experience that many journalists will always prefer speed to accuracy, so it’s basically up to us — as consumers — to adopt slow news. Yes, this challenges human nature at times. But if we don’t ask ourselves to be more cautious, we’re asking to be misled.”
As a media consumer, the best thing you can do to protect yourself and those around you from misinformation, “pink slime” news sites, and confirmation bias are to cultivate your own fact-checking skills.
Lateral Reading
Lateral reading is a media literacy skill practiced by many fact-checkers. This means looking at the broader picture of how a source compares to other sources, who backs the source, and what the expert consensus is in regard to the source. Traditional evaluation methods involve focusing solely on the source in question. Lateral reading is all about cross-referencing. It involves opening new tabs in order to learn more about the institution or source that is behind a particular piece of information. These other tabs may lead you to legacy news outlets or fact-checking websites. You will want to take note of what other publications are saying about the source in question. Is a reputable news outlet referencing your source as a trustworthy authority on a particular issue?
Fact-Checking in Action: Applying SIFT & Lateral Reading to a Bogus Climate Claim
Reuters is a great source for debunking false and misleading claims, but we don’t have the luxury of Reuter’s vetting every claim that we encounter in the myriad of viral stories, headlines, sound bites, and opinion-based pieces of news media that enter our airwaves on For You pages, Twitter feeds, the breakroom at work, or the TV. This is why it’s crucial that we acquire basic fact-checking and media literacy skills in order to navigate media consumption safely. To demonstrate the fact-checking process, let’s use a claim previously debunked by Reuters and fact-check it on our own using the SIFT technique.
In this particular case, Reuters fact-checked a viral screenshot of a CNN article headline that was circulating Facebook. The headline read: “As temperatures cool this fall, it’s important to remember that climate change will be back next summer,” suggesting that climate change is seasonal.
SIFT is yet another method that can be employed to vet a claim. SIFT stands for:
Stop
- Arguably the easiest step in the SIFT process, this is when we stop to think critically about the veracity of a claim. Intentional misinformation targets our emotions, and that is why it is so important to pause when we encounter a claim that triggers an emotional response. Alan Miller, founder and CEO of the News Literacy Project advises; “don’t let your emotions take over. If something makes us angry, anxious or excited, that’s when we are most vulnerable to being manipulated.”
Investigate the source
- The screenshot we are fact-checking originated on Facebook. This is how it appeared on Facebook:
Based on the fact that the screenshot offers no link to the supposed CNN article, and no other context, it’s unlikely we can rely on the information being presented to us in this form.
Find better coverage
- To determine the accuracy of the claim that climate change is seasonable, we must conduct research to see if other scientific or news sources have published content verifying this claim. This process of leaving the original source to find other sources to corroborate claims is lateral reading in action. The EPA reports that while climate change affects how we experience the seasons, “climate change refers to long-term changes,” and is year-long, not seasonal.
Trace claims, quotes and media to the original context
- The screenshot might look like a CNN article, but is it really? Upon further research, I found not CNN article published with the headline: “as temperatures cool this fall, it’s important to remember that climate change will be back next summer.” What I was able to find was an article published by CNN on the same date with the same authors. Here is that article:
Our verdict:
It’s pretty clear at this point that the screenshot circulating Facebook was actually a fabricated headline produced by using elements of the very-real CNN article about Sebastian Vettel featured above.
How to Differentiate Between Opinion and News Media
Some websites have appealed to the journalistic standard of transparency by explicitly labeling their content as “news” or “opinion.” We can trust these labels when they appear on reputable news outlet websites like the New York Times or The Washington Post. But when in doubt, be skeptical. The best way to differentiate between news and opinion is to look for evidence. Is there evidence to back up claims and sensational headlines? What is the evidence? Can you trace the evidence back to the original source? These are all important questions to consider when verifying claims.
The Key to Responsible Consumption: Be Skeptical
It’s easy to feel discouraged by the multi-step processes of fact-checking strategies like SIFT, or lateral reading, but perfection is not the ultimate goal here. Rather, switch your approach to media from passive consumption to active consumption. Just ✨ add a little bit of spice ✨ but in this case, the spice is “skeptical awareness,” a method suggested by Alan Miller, founder and CEO of the News Literacy Project. Miller posits that not only is applying multi-step fact-checking techniques perfectly unreasonable, it’s unnecessary:
“You don’t need to take all of these steps…[but] doing any of them will be beneficial.”
Fact-Checking: The Big Picture
Not only did Chalamet encapsulate how it feels to be a young adult nowadays in his now-viral quote about societal collapse, but in the less-viral second half of his quote he brought up some concepts that I think relate to the core value of media literacy. He said, “movies matter, because that’s the role of the artist… to shine a light on what’s going on.” While Chalamet is referring to the craft of filmmaking, we can apply this thinking to our media consumption. In employing media consumption strategies like SIFT or lateral reading, we also aid in shedding a light on what’s going on. By being more skeptical about what we hear, read, believe, say, and share, we consume and uplift media that is a truthful and transparent reflection of the world around us. Maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but I like to think that in equipping ourselves (the next generation of policymakers, educators, parents, and community leaders) with the skills necessary to seek and obtain the truth, to navigate media responsibly as active consumers and producers, we leverage our facility in tackling the big ticket issues like climate change, political polarization, wealth disparity that seem so far out of reach in today’s world.
