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Week 9 - C&@* Detect Untruthful News


Media Awareness YouTube Playlist

Articles


Probably untrustworthy - Local Connection: Fake News - Hawaii News Now


    All three articles tackle the concept of "fake news" in very different ways. However, they do have some similarities. First they all take note that "fake news" is a problem that should be taken seriously. Unfortunately, that's pretty much the only main similarity among the three articles I have chosen. 

Fort Worth Star Telegram Article

    This article talks about different tools and tricks that you can use whenever you are looking through news articles. In order to catch yourself from falling for fake news articles. The reason I chose this article as an example of a "very good" article is because it gathers information from an expert in the field of journalism. It also compiles a lot of external links to resources that help to back up their arguments. Giving them more credibility.

CNN News Article

    This article basically talks about how the average person is unable to fully detect fake news and how people are more likely to spread fake news before they catch it. The reason why I chose this article as a "partially trustworthy" article is because while the article does sprinkle in some statistics and direct quotes from a communications expert, other than that there is no real other forms of argument for their statement. For example, there is no link to the study where the "three in four Americans overestimate their ability to spot false headlines" statistic came from or even who were involved, what questions were being asked or anything like that. You pretty much have to take their word for it. If it weren't for the direct quotes, I would have labeled this article "probably untrustworthy."

Hawaii News Now

     This article is more or less a transcript from a Hawaii News Now, Local Connection segment.  The reason why I chose this article as a "partially trustworthy" news source is because it more or less reads as an opinion article rather than stating any facts or listing any examples.

Conclusion

    One of the biggest takeaways from looking through these articles is that fake news is a very difficult thing to nail down. I think it would have been better if I were to focus on one big story and see how it gets covered over three different news sites. That way I would have a better comparison over the three articles. However, just trying to find articles that cover the concept of "fake news," there is no way to fully see which articles are trying to inform or mislead you. 

    I will restate again from my previous post about fake news, do not dedicate yourself to one main news source. Instead, you should listen and follow multiple news sources. This way, you can get a wider view on what is going on in the world and prevent you from looking at the story from one perspective. 

    Honestly, I really only chose this article because I was running out of time and needed a third article. However, it does help bring up a point that, more often than not, a lot of these "fake news" articles really read as more of opinion pieces rather than solid facts and hard evidence. Which is probably why people are so drawn to fake news in the first place, it deals with emotions rather than evidence and as we learned from the SUCCESs model how important emotion is.


The key question at the heart of the assignment is how do you detect which news is truthful and which is untruthful?

The purpose of the assignment is to test our "fake news radars" and social media awareness to see how to (hopefully) tell the differences between truthful, partially truthful, and probably untruthful news.


Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 30, 2021 at 7:05 PM

    Your statement: First they all take note that "fake news" is a problem that should be taken seriously si very clear and powerful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 31, 2021 at 5:59 PM

    Your statement "do not dedicate yourself to one main news source." shows logic. It makes sense not to only gather news from one source.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ShanadyLNovember 1, 2021 at 3:14 AM

    Your statement had accuracy when you said " One of the biggest takeaways from looking through these articles is that fake news is a very difficult thing to nail down." It was very accurate, fake news is a very difficult thing to nail down. I completely agree with your takeaway.

    ReplyDelete

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