Greeting, greetings, fellow travelers!
Some of you have been following my recent series, Logical Fallacies Bootcamp, on common logical fallacies. The next installment will be on the No True Scotsman fallacy on Wednesday, but I decided to post a diary in the meantime on a different (but perhaps related) topic: news literacy.
Why a diary on news literacy: because in the category of information literacy (defined by the American Library Association as " a set of abilities requiring individuals to 'recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.'"), Americans are sorely, sorely lacking in critical thinking skills and news literacy is one aspect of that.
How bad is it?
The Stanford History Education Group has been studying news literacy among high school and middle school students for the past six years. Here’s what they found:
- 96% of high school students couldn’t identify that a website was affiliated with the fossil fuel industry, even when that information was readily available through simple online searches.
- In 2016, the SHEG found more than 80% of middle school students that a story identified as “sponsored content” was a news story rather than an advertisement.
- Less than 20% of high schoolers question the accuracy of information they see on social media.
Not encouraging. And adults, to be honest, don’t fair a lot better in many ways. Look at Kos’ series on COVID victims to see how far down disinformation rabbit holes people can fall. And Pew Research found a couple of years ago that students are more adept at telling opinion from factual news stories than adults, and adults are more likely than students to share fraudulent news stories.
Making it even worse, website search algorithms are opaque, and sometimes skewed toward getting the most “clicks” than providing the information the person actually wants or needs. YouTube’s algorithm for example, tends to point users to more extreme content, and once one starts viewing such content, it becomes a self-reinforcing loop, sending the user to more and more extreme content. One particularly egregious example of this is that a search for “Lunar Eclipse” sent the user results that included a Flat Earther video — content not even vaguely related to the search.
And Facebook’s algorithms “encourage meaningful interactions” — which presumably means clicks and comments — which means it is more likely to present users with their friends’ more controversial or divisive or questionable posts and shares.
So how do we combat this? We become more savvy in evaluating content, more aware of what we are being fed by online websites and search engines, and keep an eye out for bias and misinformation.
Context
So let’s start with the first basic item to look at when you see a news story: context.
Basically, this boils down to “Who? What? When? Where? Why?”
Who created this content? Are they considered a reliable news source? Have you heard of them before? Are you familiar with the author? Is this a satire site? (That last is a serious question: Many an “Onion” article has been shared as a serious news article — including FOX Nation, who shared an Onion story as a serious news story about Obama in 2010).
What is the story about? Does it seem reasonable or is it outlandish? Is it an opinion piece or intended to be a fact-based news story?
When was this content created? Is it still current and relevant?
Where was this content created? Is it local? National? International? This may affect the POV of the story, and give hints to potential bias.
Why was this content created? Was it to inform? To get an emotional response? To sell you something?
Starting off with a quick context “smell test” can go a long way toward “sniffing out” fake news, advertisements, or content that is out of date or otherwise irrelevant. But a surprising number of people fail to do even the most basic of vetting of this sort.
Bias and Accuracy
As part of looking at who created the content, bias becomes a factor. Bias can sometimes be hard to suss out, other times it’s much more blatant. In part, this may be part of how familiar you are with what the content is supposedly about. If you’re well versed in current political news, sniffing out a bias in a political news story becomes easier.
There are also some tools out there that can be helpful in evaluating various sites. Let me share a couple with you now:
- Allsides.com Allsides’ mission statement is “Free people from filter bubbles so they can better understand the world — and each other.” The site provides a number of tools rating news sites according to where they land on the Left-Right spectrum (based on American politics). Their most well known tool is their Media Bias Chart, and I’ll show the latest iteration of it below:
Allsides also has a Fact Checker Bias Chart. Keep in mind, as the disclaimer at the top of the chart says, the chart does not reflect on the relative accuracy of the site, but rather it’s political bias based on it’s interpretation of facts:
Some things to consider about Allsides:
- It considers only political bias, NOT accuracy of content.
- It evaluates opinion sections separate from news content (i.e. NPR Opinion vs. NPR News
- More than just what are shown in the chart are evaluated, the charts only show the top news sources and fact checkers. Ratings of other sites can be found on the Allsides site.
- Transparency: The site provided information on how it arrives at it’s bias rating for each site.
- Ad Fontes Media Ad Fontes Media also provides a chart of media bias, but also rates sites on a spectrum of relative accuracy. Here is there most current chart, where the X (vertical) axis is accuracy, and the Y axis (horizontal) is political left/right bias:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the more politically biased a site is, the less accurate it is. And look, Daily Kos shows up on the chart! According to Ad Fontes Media, DKos shows up between “Skews Left” and “Hyperpartisan Left” and as “Opinion or High Variation in Reliability.” Now, DKos is, openly and admittedly, a left-wing site, so the bias is unsurprising. Also, the fact that much content on here is created by the Dkos community and not vetted for accuracy prior to publishing, it does make some sense to drop us in the “opinion or high variation in reliability” area of the chart, to be honest. Basically, as with any site, use your common sense and critical thinking skills to suss out the biases and possible inaccuracies.
Some things to consider about Ad Fontes Media:
- A relative newcomer, Ad Fontes was incorporated in 2018 with a mission to “to make news consumers smarter and news media better.”
- Is incorporated in Colorado as a Public Benefit Corporation
- Is funded by a combination of crowdfunding, donations, and sales of licenses, educational materials, commercial data, and similar such things.
- Uses human analysts to analyze content for accuracy, not just political bias, using their own methodology.
- Is open about its methodology and admits to its own biases, and openly shares what it does to minimize bias in its rating.
- Evaluates not only news sites but podcasts and other content.
Ok, what is your source isn’t on one of these charts, or you just don’t feel like checking them? Oh, and also, those charts are an average, some content may be more or less accurate or biased than others. So...what do YOU need to do to detect bias?
Well, for one, go back to the initial questions posed, and especially look at the “Who” and “Why” questions. Also, consider these additional items:
Is the content attempting to influence my emotions, or sell me something?
Does the content use or provide reliable sources? “Some people say” isn’t a reliable source (I’m looking at YOU, Fox News).
Does the evidence support the conclusion?
What’s missing? Sometimes what ISN’T in an article can be as telling as what IS in an article. Are there critical omissions or questions left unanswered? The nature of such omissions or unanswered questions can sometimes expose biases as much as what is actually said.
If it’s a political piece look for common phrasing and buzzwords used by either side. For example use of “job creators” might be a clue that the author is coming from a Republican point of view, while “workers rights” for example might be a clue to a Democratic POV.
Read Beyond The Headlines
How many times have you read a clickbaity headline only to find that the actual content of the article is much more mundane and boring? Yet a LOT of people get their “news” from just reading those headlines, without digging any deeper.
Read the article. Evaluate it and the source.
A general rule of thumb: the more sensational the headline, the more likely that either 1) the article is inaccurate and/or highly biased; or 2) The headline is an attention-grabber to get people to share on social media, but the actual facts are...well, a lot less exciting than the headline makes it appear. The only way to know which is which is to...surprise! Read the article.
Diversify Your News Sources
I’m not saying you should put Newsmax on your feed, but if you primarily get the vast majority of your news from just a couple of sources, it’s worthwhile to expand that to include some others — just be aware of those sources potential biases. By having more “pipelines” of information, you reduce the risk that you are confining yourself to an “information silo.”
Be Self-Aware
This is a very key element. Be aware of your own potential biases. Beware of confirmation bias, where you believe a source to be more reliable because it’s telling you things that you want to hear. There lies dragons, and an unsavvy news consumer can soon find themselves falling victim to conspiracy theories and hyperpartisan misinformation.
Watch Out For Deceptive Visuals and Audio-Visuals
Did you see the graph at the beginning of the diary? FOX News is positively notorious for creating graphs that are deceptive, for example starting a graph far from a zero baseline to maximize the apparent difference between numbers that are actually not nearly so far apart as the visual would make it appear (as in the example). Another example is poll numbers that exceed 100% for no apparent reason (as in a poll showing that 60% disapproved of Obama’s job performance, and 50% strongly disapproved, for a total of 110% of polled people, and apparently with not a single polled individual approving or being being neutral on the question).
Here’s one from CNN about the Terry Schiavo case. Looks like a wide gulf between Democrats and Republicans on the issue, right? Anyone just glancing at the graph without looking more closely would think there was a huge difference between the two parties, when in fact the graph’s vertical axis STARTS at 50% — the “wide gulf” the graph seems to show is a mere 8% difference.
Also watch out for deceptive photos that may be intended to influence you emotionally. Republicans are also notorious for this, for example darkening the skin tone of Obama to make him appear “blacker” than his natural skin tone, or using unflattering photos in general.
And watch for deceptive audio or video. Deceptively edited audio or video may show “actual events” but the editing my leave out key details. This is one example of where consulting multiple news sources may help get the whole story. One source may use a less than complete clip of a video, for example, while another may provide a longer clip, giving more context for the events shown.
Be Cautious, But Not Cynical
A last word of caution — be careful not to fall prey to outright cynicism when evaluating the news. In other words, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that no news is accurate, it’s all highly biased and not worth reading. There be dragons that way, too. There are good news sources out there, that often supply good, solid content. Are they perfect? No! No human endeavor is. But by checking with other news sources you can compare what they say and, with your common sense and critical thinking, be able to get a pretty good feel for what’s really going on.
Obviously, there is more that can be said, but hopefully this will provide a few tools for you to be a better, more discerning news consumer. And to be honest, much of what I’ve said here an apply to websites in general, like the Who? What? When? Where? Why? questions I brought up earlier. Use those when looking at any website and they will serve you well.
Now, go forth and be savvy news consumers!