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Nov. 22, 2022 - Skeptoid
17:21
Skeptoid #859: How to Spot Fake News

A roundup of easy techniques anyone can employ to better discern accurate news reports from false ones. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Time Text
Spotting Fake News Sources 00:13:25
If you're like most of us, you've been fooled by an inaccurate news report and maybe even shared it on social media.
It's not a good look.
And more to the point, it perpetuates a problem that only seems to grow as electronic media becomes ever easier to share.
Not to mention easy for anyone to create and to say whatever they want.
How to spot fake news is coming up right now on Skeptoid.
Hi, I'm Alex Goldman.
You may know me as the host of Reply All, but I'm done with that.
I'm doing something else now.
I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed.
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No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you.
That's HyperFixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia.
Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at hyperfixedpod.com.
You're listening to Skeptoid.
I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.
How to Spot Fake News.
Fake news is a term that didn't really exist more than a few years ago.
The concept, however, is as old as news.
Taking away the obvious political association, fake news can refer to anything from propaganda to spin to deliberate disinformation.
There are always people out there trying to push some idea, and sometimes they're very good at it and they disguise it well to look like genuine unbiased reporting.
But that's actually pretty rare.
More often, fake news is either ham-handed or so thoroughly tailored to fit into some echo chamber that it's indistinguishable.
Today we're going to have a look at some ways to spot it and flush it out.
There's not always a super hard-line distinction between what's completely made up and what's being highly spin-doctored to appeal to those of a particular worldview.
It's important to recognize that nearly every piece of news has at least some amount of spin on it.
That's something we all know, and we also know that whenever we're inside our particular comfortable echo chamber, we tend to forget that everything we're seeing has been tweaked to make it more appealing.
We know it, but we like to comfortably relax and forget it.
A dangerous state to be in.
Because when in such a state, comfortably ensconced in our bubble, we might pass along and share on social media an article which may be so far over the line of spin that it constitutes genuine misinformation.
I'm going to mention, quote, reliable news sources, end quote, a number of times in this episode, so a definition is warranted.
It refers to news outlets that are both non-partisan and that have high journalistic standards for factuality.
Well, how can one tell this?
One way is to use a source such as the Media Bias Chart from Adfontus Media, a public benefit corporation, which is transparent in its analytical methodology of categorizing thousands of news outlets.
You can see at a glance if your favorite source is accurate and if it's partisan.
Most sources fit on their graph in the pattern of an inverted V. Unbiased and truthful sources are at the top of the V, and the vast majority of sources are on either of two arms, each extending downward into inaccuracy and with either a left or right bias.
As of this writing, popular sources up at the pinnacle include NPR News, Reuters, Associated Press, BBC News, and The Hill, among others.
There are also some virtually guaranteed signs of an unreliable news source.
If your source claims to, quote, report the news that mainstream media won't, or if it even uses the term mainstream media to derogatorily refer to reliable sources, you can almost be assured your source belongs near the bottom of one of the arms of that inverted V. So let's get started with one of the easiest and most effective ways to spot fake news that depends entirely upon reliable news sources.
You've got some news story you want to evaluate?
Start with this.
Make sure the news also appears on reliable news sources.
Yeah, remember those reliable news sources we talked about?
If your story is a real one, it should also appear in the legitimate news.
Search them thoroughly, and if you can't find it, it's a pretty good sign that your story is made up or false.
Between Reuters and AP, just about anything that's actually true has been reported.
Keep them bookmarked as a quick way to double-check any story whose veracity you're curious about.
Check your biases.
Does the story sound a little too perfect in a way that strokes your preferred world view?
If so, it could have been custom designed to thrive in the very type of echo chamber you feel comfortable in.
Of course, this is never proof that the story is false, but it should serve as a red flag to prompt you to check further.
Always keep in mind that you are no harder to fool than anyone else.
So it follows that your bubble contains just as much misinformation as every other bubble out there.
In times of extreme political division, one popular ploy used by all sides is the creation of fake news stories or the extreme exaggeration or spinning of real news stories, carefully designed to make you angry at, quote, the other side.
Depict them as having overt Nazi sympathies.
Depict them as wanting to abort all babies.
Depict them as wanting to force their religion on everyone.
Depict them as wanting to make everyone gay.
Depict them as wanting everyone to be white or as wanting nobody to be white.
Any absurd exaggeration like these is virtually guaranteed to be the creation of political spin doctors trying to fire up members of a given political party.
Don't fall for it, at least not without thoroughly fact-checking it with an attitude of extreme skepticism.
Check the article's biases.
If the article uses weasel words or uses disparaging language, particularly for members of an opposing political philosophy, then consider a big red flag to have been thrown.
Even if the story is true, sharing it would not be a good look, so take the opportunity to search for the same story on a reliable news source.
If you find it, post that version instead.
Though chances are you'll find it doesn't strike the same tone that attracted you to the original version.
If you don't find it, thank the weasely language that tipped you off.
In a world that can feel overwhelming, spreading thoughtful, evidence-based content is one of the best ways to make a positive impact.
Ask your local public radio station to air the Skeptoid Files, a 30-minute radio-friendly version of Skeptoid that pairs two related episodes promoting real science, true history, and critical thinking.
And in these challenging times for public media, we're offering these broadcasts for free to radio stations, available on the PRX Exchange or directly from Skeptoid Media.
It's an easy ask.
Just send a quick message to your station's programming director.
By helping to bring the Skeptoid files to the airwaves, you'll help promote the essential skills we all need to tell fact from fiction.
Just go to your local station's website, find the programming director's email address, or just their general email address.
You can even use the telephone.
I know that might sound crazy.
It's an old legacy device that allows real-time voice communication.
I know that's weird, but hey, it's an option.
The world can feel chaotic, but you're not powerless.
When you promote critical thinking, you can help your community tell fact from fiction.
And that's how we shape a better future.
In uncertain times, spreading good ideas can make you feel helpful, not helpless.
Let's stand up for reason, truth, and understanding.
Together, get them to air the Skeptoid files from Skeptoid Media, available on the PRX Exchange, and they'll know what that is.
Watch for conspiratorial overtones.
Legitimate news articles report the facts.
They don't editorialize about how the story is being suppressed by the authorities or ignored by mainstream media.
If your article does go ranting off on such tangents, then at best it's a terrible article, and at worst, it's just some propaganda nonsense.
Claims of suppression are the territory of the conspiracy monger and are nothing more than a weak attempt to show that powerful forces are afraid of the truth.
Send the article to the round file.
Double check for satire.
Even the most sage among us are sometimes taken in by satire.
A lot of satire is not very artful or well done and often misses its attempt to be funny, so it isn't always obvious.
A lot of the time, intentional satire, as bad as a lot of it may be, still openly identifies itself as such.
Read the masthead at the bottom of the page.
Look at the other articles.
Also, legitimate publications will sometimes have a satire section or a satire columnist, and this might evade your checks to see if it's a satire publication.
So look at the author.
See the section it's filed under.
Click on the author's byline.
Look everywhere that an indicator of satire might be found.
Also, be aware that unlike a lot of bad satire, some satire columnists are very good writers, sometimes too good for the purpose, and their satire might be over the head of some readers.
When a writer aims badly, missing their satire doesn't require an unsophisticated reader.
Check the date.
Some things that seem like they should be obvious can be easily overlooked.
Sometimes a story is really old, and we don't notice that, and we read it and post it as if it happened yesterday.
This is a quick way of turning a true story into a false one.
Don't trust the headline.
Also, this seems so obvious, but lots of smart people get tripped up by this every day.
Even in some otherwise reliable publications, editors will try to dress up the attractiveness of an otherwise mundane article by giving it a clickbait style headline.
Never share a story based only on the headline.
Read the actual article.
It seems this will never not have to be said.
Don't trust pictures.
Unless you're reading the story on a reliable news source, all of its content should automatically be suspect.
This applies especially to photographs that seem particularly remarkable.
A lot of times when someone has mocked up a fake image using Photoshop to combine two or more images, the dominant image can be found using a reverse image search.
A few popular ones include 10Eye, Google Images, Pixie, and Yandex.
You might be surprised what you find out.
You might discover the image is real, but either old or misattributed, or you might find out that it's a composite image.
Just beware that these searches don't always find everything, and some of your reverse image searches will come up empty-handed.
This doesn't necessarily mean the image is genuine.
Reverse image searches can often prove that your image is faked, but they can't ever prove that it's genuine.
A quick Google trick.
Often when a fake story is floating around, somebody else will have already done the work to debunk it.
There's an easy way to check for this that works in nearly all cases.
Let's say the story is that Lady Gaga is running for president.
Use a search engine to find articles that have already fact-checked this.
Search for Lady Gaga President Skeptic, Lady Gaga President, Fake, Lady Gaga President, Hoax, or Lady Gaga President Fact Check.
If it's a fake story, one or more of these will almost certainly uncover the evidence.
This is a trick I've successfully used many, many times.
Consider the source.
Consider The Source Carefully 00:02:45
Even the best reliable news sources will sometimes include editorial or opinion content, and this can sometimes include terrible misinformation.
See who the author is.
See what they've written on in the past.
The thing to look out for here is a source that is dedicated to the promotion of a particular viewpoint.
If it's an author who has written books promoting a specific viewpoint or otherwise has a reputation for being associated with it, then it's an author who is not objective.
Some such authors who are not objective are right.
Many others are people who have made a career out of some niche claim that is pseudoscientific more often than not.
When we're trying to assess whether a news story is fake or not, an objective reporter who follows journalistic standards is unlikely to get it wrong.
But the only reason a reporter with a career-long bias would write an article is that it happens to align with their particular thing, whatever it is.
By itself, this doesn't make the article wrong, but it does make it the wrong source.
Seek a version from a reliable news source instead.
And so I'll leave you with that.
You probably won't need more than one or two of these tricks in most cases, but even then, you'll be using one or two more than most people do.
Media literacy is more important than ever, and building your immunity to fake news is a big part of it.
It's one great way to make sure we're all part of the solution, and not perpetuating the problem.
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Remember Skepticism Is Best Medicine 00:01:06
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