Here is the latest installment of a weekly feature I have been running for some time on this blog — lessons from the nonprofit News Literacy Project, which aims to teach students and the public how to sort fact from fiction in our digital and contentious age.
The News Literacy Project was founded more than a decade ago by Alan Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter at the Los Angeles Times, and it has become the leading provider of news literacy education. You can learn more about the organization and its resources and programs in this piece.
The material in this post comes from the organization’s newsletter for educators, the Sift, which has more than 23,000 subscribers. Published weekly during the school year, it explores timely examples of misinformation, addresses media and press freedom topics, discusses social media trends and issues, and includes discussion prompts and activities for the classroom. Get Smart About News, modeled on the Sift, is a free weekly newsletter for the general public.
Advertisement
The News Literacy Project’s browser-based e-learning platform Checkology helps educators teach middle and high school students how to identify credible information, seek out reliable sources, know what to trust, what to dismiss and what to debunk.
It also gives them an appreciation of the importance of the First Amendment and a free press. Checkology, and all of NLP’s resources and programs, are free. Since 2016, more than 37,000 educators in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and more than 120 other countries have registered to use the platform. Since August 2020, more than 3,000 educators and more than 125,000 students have actively used Checkology.
Here’s material from the Feb. 28 edition of the Sift:
As the situation surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to unfold, it’s important for everyone to practice news-literate information habits. Understanding where to find credible information about the events in Ukraine and how to avoid being duped into sharing false and misleading information is vital. Here are three tips to help you keep your footing and avoid unintentionally spreading confusion and harm:
Advertisement
1. Be cautious and discerning with what you believe and share.
- Out-of-context photos and video proliferate during military conflicts and other major news events. Avoid liking and sharing any visuals that haven’t been verified by credible, standards-based sources.
- Keep in mind: What you endorse and amplify online affects the perceptions of others. Slow down and follow common-sense steps — like these — before you react to information from unfamiliar sources.
2. Familiarize yourself with Russian disinformation outlets, tactics and narratives.
- Russia has built an extensive foundation of disinformation to try to justify its military actions. Once established, these false narratives can be difficult to dislodge or trace back to their source.
- Keep in mind: Russian state-run propaganda outlets have an established presence on major social media platforms and can be hard to identify. A quick Web search for the name of any unfamiliar news sources or unsubstantiated claims is your best first step to avoid misinformation.
3. Put yourself in the way of credible information.
- For all the mis- and disinformation that circulates on social media, these platforms can also be powerful tools for accessing and curating timely, credible information. Be intentional about following professional journalists on the ground, reputable news organizations and fact-checkers debunking falsehoods in real-time.
- Keep in mind: Breaking news events create chaotic, fast-moving and challenging information environments. Resist the urge to demonstrate your concern by reflexively sharing sensational but unconfirmed posts and updates. Also remember that it’s important to consider fairness and framing — as well as accuracy — as you follow news on Ukraine in the days ahead. Some have criticized recent news coverage, for instance, for including racist and Eurocentric sentiments that reveal a troubling double standard in coverage of this conflict compared to those outside Europe.
— “‘I’ll Stand on the Side of Russia’: Pro-Putin Sentiment Spreads Online” (Davey Alba and Stuart A. Thompson, the New York Times).
— “Scammy Instagram ‘war pages’ are capitalizing on Ukraine conflict” (Taylor Lorenz, Input)
— “War in Ukraine sparks new wave of misinformation” (Kat Tenbarge and Ben Collins, NBC News)
Dig deeper: Use this think sheet to help students further explore Russian disinformation tactics.
Russia has a history of using disinformation to “justify” actions condemned by the international community. However, its recent efforts to fabricate a rationale for invading Ukraine were quickly debunked by open-source investigators. They used geolocation to disprove a claim about supposed Ukrainian saboteurs sneaking into Russia; heat-sensing satellite data to disprove Russian claims of an attack; and video analysis tools to show that footage of a purported act of sabotage included audio of explosions taken from a different video.
Advertisement
- Discuss: Why might Russia want people around the world to believe that it was provoked into attacking Ukraine? How do these kinds of narratives seek to provoke or manipulate people’s emotions? How might this kind of disinformation be useful as Russia tries to build support among its citizens for invading Ukraine? What distinguishes propaganda from other kinds of misinformation?
- Related:
— “War via TikTok: Russia’s new tool for propaganda machine” (David Klepper, the Associated Press).
— “Geolocating TikTok videos of Russian military vehicles near Ukraine” (Derek Bowler, Medium).
— “How to spot video and photo fakes as Russia invades Ukraine” (Al Tompkins, Poynter).
Note: The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has resulted in a surge of viral rumors, which we can’t comprehensively address in our Viral Rumor Rundown. For real-time misinformation updates, follow the work of professional fact-checking organizations devoting significant attention to Ukraine.
* The Emancipator, America’s first abolitionist newspaper, is being revived more than 200 years after its founding with the goal of reframing modern conversations “on racial justice and equity.”
* Don’t miss this “60 Minutes” report on the vital role local newsrooms play in communities and the threats they face from hedge funds and other financial firms.
Advertisement
* Can you guess which faces in this Instagram post are real and which are fake? Do you trust some faces more than others? It turns out that faces created using artificial intelligence are now nearly indistinguishable from real faces, and even seem more trustworthy to people, according to a new study. (Compare your guesses with the correct answers at the bottom of this story.)
* A new report examining narratives related to coronavirus vaccines found that influencers played a major role in spreading vaccine mis- and disinformation during the pandemic.
* A new analysis from the Center for Countering Digital Hate shows Facebook is failing to flag about half of the posts with articles from the world’s top publishers of climate change denial — falling short of the platform’s pledges to curb climate misinformation.
Advertisement
* The search engine DuckDuckGo is known for its user privacy protections — but its comparative lack of content moderation has increasingly made it a favorite of some conspiracy theorists and right-wing influencers looking for dubious information that other search engines and platforms are less likely to amplify.
* A new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found that 16 percent of Americans surveyed last year believed in the core tenets of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory — and that people who trust far-right media outlets like One America News and Newsmax are about five times more likely to be believers.
* Think misinformation is a recent problem? Think again. Even George Washington had to fact-check political falsehoods.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLKlwcKaq6KnnmR%2FcX6RaGdsZ2BnfLa30Zqgp51dmba0tc2fpqulkam2sLqMp5ywq12htrWx0ZqasmWcmsC0u82sZg%3D%3D