Subject Guides: Fake News: News Literacy

Why has fake news become a problem?

In 2016 Oxford Dictionaries named "post-truth" as its "Word of the Year". There are many reasons that fake news has grown including:

Rise of Social Media
According to a Pew Research Center report, over 40% of adults in the US go to Facebook for their news.
Clickbait
News that goes "viral" and is widely shared is far more likely to be false or misleading.
Civic Online Reasoning
Social media users, specifically middle, high school and college students, have difficulty with what Stanford University researchers call "civic online reasoning - the ability to judge the credibility of information that feeds young people’s smartphones, tablets, and computers".
Filter Bubbles
Search engines and social media usually present us with information intended to fit with our own individual interests and perspective. We then miss information that others with different perspectives are more likely to see.
Confirmation Bias
People are predisposed to believe information that fits their worldview and to discount information that does not.

This box was adapted from a guide created by Beth Rohloff from Phillips Exeter Academy and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

What's a reputable news source?

One of the ways in which a news source demonstrates its authenticity and responsibility to its readers is through a publicly accessible code of ethics or standards. A sample of various codes, mission statements and ethics handbooks are listed below.

NPR Ethics Handbook
New York Times: Standards and Ethics
Society of Professional Journalists - Code of Ethics
What makes real news real? In part, it's because of journalistic ethics. The Society of Journalistic Ethics provides a code of professional ethics for journalists to adhere to.

Lucy Scribner Library

Fake News: News Literacy

Why has fake news become a problem?

What's a reputable news source?