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| Source – mediaite.com |
Fake news has the potential to kill brands. It’s everyone’s job to
stop that from happening!
Fake news, or, ahem, ‘alternative facts’ has been hitting the
headlines increasingly so in the past few months. But, it’s certainly not a new
problem. What is new is both the volume and the speed in which fake news
spreads, and in the number of people who don’t analyse basic stories critically
enough to ascertain whether they are genuine or not.
The following advice from Fact Check offers some
useful perspective on how to spot fake news, and how to decipher it from the
plethora of real news that is out there. Frankly speaking, every little thing
we do to help stop the spread of fake news is a good move. It’s up to us all. For
the whole article, click here.
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Consider the source.
In recent months, we’ve fact-checked fake news from abcnews.com.co
(not the actual URL for ABC News), WTOE 5 News (whose “about” page says it’s “a
fantasy news website”), and the Boston Tribune (whose “contact us” page lists
only a gmail address). Earlier this year, we debunked the claim that the Obamas
were buying a vacation home in Dubai, a made-up missive that came from
WhatDoesItMean.com, which describes itself as “One Of The Top Ranked Websites
In The World for New World Order, Conspiracy Theories and Alternative News” and
further says on its site that most of what it publishes is fiction.
Read beyond the headline.
If a provocative headline drew your attention,
read a little further before you decide to pass along the shocking information.
Even in legitimate news stories, the headline doesn’t always tell the whole
story. But fake news, particularly efforts to be satirical, can include several
revealing signs in the text. That abcnews.com.co story that we checked,
headlined “Obama Signs Executive Order Banning The Pledge Of Allegiance In
Schools Nationwide,” went on to quote “Fappy the Anti-Masturbation Dolphin.” We
have to assume that the many readers who asked us whether this viral rumor was
true hadn’t read the full story.
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| Source – Fullerton College Library |
Check the author.
Another tell-tale sign of a fake story is often the byline. The
pledge of allegiance story on abcnews.com.co was supposedly written by “Jimmy
Rustling.” Who is he? Well, his author page claims he is a “doctor” who won
“fourteen Peabody awards and a handful of Pulitzer Prizes.” Pretty impressive,
if true. But it’s not. No one by the name of “Rustling” has won a Pulitzer or
Peabody award. The photo accompanying Rustling’s bio is also displayed on
another bogus story on a different site, but this time under the byline “Darius
Rubics.” The Dubai story was written by “Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her
Western Subscribers.” The Pope Francis story has no byline at all.
What’s the support?
Many times these bogus stories will cite official — or
official-sounding — sources, but once you look into it, the source doesn’t back
up the claim. For instance, the Boston Tribune site wrongly claimed that
President Obama’s mother-in-law was going to get a lifetime government pension
for having babysat her granddaughters in the White House, citing “the Civil
Service Retirement Act” and providing a link. But the link to a government
benefits website doesn’t support the claim at all.
Check the date.
Some false stories aren’t completely fake, but rather distortions of
real events. These mendacious claims can take a legitimate news story and twist
what it says — or even claim that something that happened long ago is related
to current events.
Is this some kind of joke?
Remember, there is such thing as satire. Normally, it’s clearly
labeled as such, and sometimes it’s even funny. Andy Borowitz has been writing
a satirical news column, the Borowitz Report, since 2001, and it has appeared
in the New Yorker since 2012. But not everyone gets the jokes. We’ve fielded
several questions on whether Borowitz’s work is true.
Among the headlines our readers have flagged: “Putin Appears with
Trump in Flurry of Swing-State Rallies” and “Trump Threatens to Skip Remaining
Debates If Hillary Is There.” When we told readers these were satirical
columns, some indicated that they suspected the details were far-fetched but
wanted to be sure.
Check your biases.
We know this is difficult. Confirmation bias leads people to put
more stock in information that confirms their beliefs and discount information
that doesn’t. But the next time you’re automatically appalled at some Facebook
post concerning, say, a politician you oppose, take a moment to check it out.
Try this simple test: What other stories have been posted to the
“news” website that is the source of the story that just popped up in your
Facebook feed? You may be predisposed to believe that Obama bought a house in
Dubai, but how about a story on the same site that carries this headline:
“Antarctica ‘Guardians’ Retaliate Against America With Massive New Zealand
Earthquake.” That, too, was written by the prolific “Sorcha Faal, and as
reported to her Western Subscribers.”
Consult the experts.
We know you’re busy, and some of this debunking
takes time. But we get paid to do this kind of work. Between FactCheck.org,
Snopes.com, the Washington Post Fact Checker and PolitiFact.com, it’s likely at
least one has already fact-checked the latest viral claim to pop up in your
news feed.
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Craig J Selby | Craig is a long-time proponent of structured and measured change. His early career saw him teaching marketing and management at a variety of Universities and PTE’s in his native New Zealand, where he quickly climbed the management ladder to head several private sector institutes. Needing to do that little bit extra, Craig formed his own consultancy firm and was engaged by many in the sector as a trouble-shooter - responsible for internal auditing, restructuring and redevelopment of many departments and institutes in order to remain competitive in a highly contested market. This involvement motivated him to branch out and work with other industries - focussing on change and development as a core theme in business survival. When Craig moved to Malaysia, he went back into the Education sector to share his ideas with local private sector educational facilities. In 2009 Craig co-founded Orchan Consulting Asia, an award-winning Public Relations agency. His areas of specialisation are Crisis Management Communications and Change Management.
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