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Fake or false news always seem to propagate faster than accurate news, and social media is the perfect environment for their distribution. Articles with false and outrageous claims may be shared whether one agrees or not. Maybe someone wants to point out a misconception or a lie in the article. Dumbed down reporting also has an advantage over thorough analysis which takes time to read and understand. Quick and easy news spread faster than slow and careful thinking.
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report of 2017 tried to look at, among other things, the link between political polarisation and perceived media bias in several countries. They write:
Definitions of āfake newsā are fraught with difficulty and respondents frequently mix up three categories: (1) news that is āinventedā to make money or discredit others; (2) news that has a basis in fact, but is āspunā to suit a particular agenda; and (3) news that people donāt feel comfortable about or donāt agree with.
Reuters Digital News Report, 2017
They note that few people have seen fake news of the first category, except in the United States which certainly is a politically polarised country. Furthermore, they continue:
Our research suggests that the vast majority of news people consume still comes from mainstream media and that most of the reasons for distrust also relate to mainstream media.
This is interesting since, as we will discuss in the next part, some fact checking organisations appear to be biased against small independent media and generally expressing more faith in mainstream media.
The term 'fake news' may be used in many different ways, including those listed by the Reuters report. It could refer to pure lies, half-truths, wild exaggerations and misleading representations, satire, or the stream of trivialities and gossip that drowns out more important news. Notably, the accusation of spreading fake news can be used to silence the messenger who's message is not appreciated.
Propaganda is most effective when based on truth, albeit selectively and with a bias, because fake news, in the sense of blatant lies, is vulnerable to fact checking. But fact checking, whether you look up the sources yourself or go through the intermediary of a professional fact checking organisation depends on trust and evaluation. Since the human species has the peculiarity of advanced languages to communicate with and technologies that connect us over vast distances we perceive reality not only immediately through our senses, but also in a mediated way through other people's testimony about what they have experienced. The same capabilities that allow us to be informed about distant events also allow us to be fooled. An easy way out is to resort to skepticism and doubt, to believe only what one hears and sees. A healthy dose of skepticism can be fine, as long as it doesn't lead you to the camp of flat earthers or other science deniers. The alternative involves trusting some people enough to take their claims seriously even if you cannot verify them yourself.
A few elementary techniques of fact checking and reliability assessment are offered in a brief article (Mary Margaret Herring & Aaron Delwiche: How To Spot Fake News. Propaganda Critic, August 8, 2018), perhaps addressed to the young and naĆÆve reader, but we all have to begin somewhere.
https://propagandacritic.com/index.php/tools-for-fighting-back/how-to-spot-fake-news/
I will quote their suggestions at length and comment on each point individually.
1. Consider the source. Have you heard of this news agency before? If not, do a quick Google search on them and see what you find. Also check out the siteās āAboutā page to learn more about the source.
It is indeed useful to consult the About page. Normally, you should be able to find out who owns the site, maybe where they position themselves in the political landscape, how they are funded, and so on. Of course you can do "a quick Google search", although by now everyone should know that Google itself is an interested party with its own biases as well as a memory of your past searches. A much better alternative would be to use another, privacy respecting search engine, or even several in parallel to see how they differ.
2. Is the headline in ALL CAPS? Does it seem too crazy to be true? These are often signs of clickbait.
BRILLIANT ADVICE!! WHO THOUGHT OF THAT? What seems too crazy to be true, though, depends on the reader's background knowledge and beliefs. Confirmation bias is not so easily fought.
Does it seem too crazy to be true that tobacco kills? Maybe it once did. As we now know, when evidence of its lethal effects emerged, the tobacco companies engaged its merchants of doubt to create the illusion that the evidence was not as solid as it actually was. Some conspiracy theories (or should we not rather say, conspiracy hypotheses) that later turned out to be correct also fall into this category.
Clickbait articles don't necessarily have to be false stories, they are just shaped in a way that grabs your attention and are likely to contain garbage news, distraction, and entertainment that leaves you as uninformed as before.
3. Photoshopped picture? Red Flag! Unless it is an article written by someone showing off their skills at graphic design, it is probably a fake news story.
Communication through pictures is a more stealthy and subtle way to sneak in facts or perceptions than to state things outright in words. Many newspapers have used caricatures or obviously distorted photos as illustrations for articles. The writing may be serious despite these artistic effects.
Image alteration is nothing new. Stalin had people who fell in his disfavour retouched from photos.
Today pictures as well as video can be faked in much more advanced ways. Sophisticated photoshopped images don't have red circles, pointing arrows, and inserted text. It may not be possible to tell with the naked eye whether the image has been doctored.
A simpler technique is to reuse images from one context to illustrate another situation. It is quite easy to lie about the size of a demonstration by choosing a plausible picture from another part of the world or from another date and providing a misleading caption. A reverse image search might clarify the picture's actual provenance.
4. Check the byline. Who wrote the news story? Click on their name or Google them to see their qualifications, possible biases, and writing history. If no author is listed, this is a red flag. Reconsider the source and analyze the authenticity of sources cited in the article to check for credibility.
Yes, you can do all that. There are exceptions when anonymous authors still have truthful information to share. More commonly there is an anonymous source who passes on information to a journalist. Unnamed sources who work for the government can be reason for suspicion, since this can be a convenient way to hand out rumors or propaganda in order to shape public opinion.
If you read the article critically your reading will inform you about its author, rather than the other way around. For that to be possible some background knowledge of the topic is required. Then you will easily identify the author's biases.
5. When was it written? Fake news distributors are often lazy. Instead of wasting effort by making new stories, some fake news sites might just repost old news. This does not make the news relevant at the current moment.
Unfortunately, some old stories remain relevant after several years. Reposting an old story, clearly marked with its original posting date and a brief comment about why it's still interesting is a good way of providing historical context. Focusing solely on the immediate present of the 24 hour news cycle is a sure way of losing historical perspective and dumbing down the viewers.
6. Check the supporting sources. Many times, fake news articles will cite other fake news outlets or interview fictional people. If the source is speaking to a high profile official that you havenāt heard of, Google the personās name.
All fine, but what about really elaborate fake news and cover-ups? For an interesting case study consider the alleged chemical attacks in Syria and the role of the White Helmets in shaping public perception of what actually was going on. It is a somewhat complicated story, but the curious will find it well explained at the GrayZone and a few other outlets (see the previous part of this guide).
7. Click on the links. If a story contains hyperlinks, see where they lead. Sometimes, they will lead to a dead end or an even more unreliable news story.
Reasonable enough. To which must be added that journalism is sometimes concerned with disentangling webs of falsehoods, to see who lied about what. Linking directly to the story is exactly what any self-respecting journalist would do, especially if the lies were published in the nations largest mainstream newspaper or TV show.
8. Skim the entire story. Some sources try to get more views by using sensational titles. Make sure that you understand the entire story before sharing it.
Back to the clickbait point above. Besides, maybe an article that is short and simple enough to understand in ten seconds isn't worth sharing at all. And in order to "understand the entire story" you should preferably turn to one of those conscientious writers who pack their articles densely with information, because the whole story is often more complicated than what fits into a regular short article.
9. How does the story make you feel? If the story makes you angry, happy, sad, or mad, it was probably meant to do so. Understanding your bias is important when trying to distinguish emotional appeals from arguments based on evidence and logic.
First of all, we would not make sense of the world without emotions. It is inevitable to react emotionally to stories insofar as they concern us in any way. What this piece of advice obviously aims at is to recognise emotional manipulation. As discussed in the first part of this media guide, emotional tone and factual correctness are independent, orthogonal aspects. Factual reporting may be intensely emotional, yet follow a stringent logic. But by all means, our reasoning faculties work so much better in a calm state of mind.
10. If you still arenāt sure, ask a friend. These fake news stories are written to trick us so it can be hard to determine their credibility. If you are in doubt, get another friendās opinion. They might catch something that you missed.
What a nice idea to meet your friend for a discussion. For minor details this might work, but when it comes to ideological differences or deeply entrenched belief systems ... I guess your friendship would need to be strong.
As said, this extensively quoted fake news guide appears to be aimed at a young or uneducated audience. It points to form (all caps, click bait, photoshopped pictures, usage of links) and emotional tone, seems to favour known sources (probably prefering mainstream media) to unknown ones, and tells you to google everything you don't know.
What it doesn't propose are the things that are harder to do, because they take time. You need to consider a wealth of sources, from different political angles as well as from various geographical locations. Historical context is necessary for deeper understanding. Fake news of the blatant kind addressed in these ten points should be fairly easy to spot. It is much harder, in fact impossible, to discover which stories are absent from the media you read and watch. Omission is the most insidious form of news bias.
And, finally, fake news analysis should be put in a broader context of media litteracy. (To be fair, the dissected article appears on a site that tries to do exactly that, albeit with a few shortcomings and fallacies of their own, as the astute reader will find.)
Third part (this page)
Seventh part (Information flow)
Part eleven (Internet censorship)
Part twelve (Conspiratorial thinking)
Part thirteen (Psychology of propaganda)
Part fourteen (Information warfare)
The Oxymoronist Media Guide is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
This part published on August 24, 2021
Updated on September 19, 2021