Research Guides : Fake News and Finding Reliable Sources: Books and Articles

In the News

E-Discovery Sanctions Front Page in BuzzFeed ‘Fake News’ Case Not cooperating in e-discovery may be winning a small battle, but in the end you’re doing things that may lose you the war.
Alleged ‘fake news’ outlet denied quick win in suit against BuzzFeed A federal judge has turned down an international news purveyor’s bid for a quick legal victory in a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed over a story claiming that the England-based firm was selling fake news stories.
Fake news comes to the Supreme Court At Tuesday’s argument before the Supreme Court about gerrymandering — the science of using map-drawing and Big Data to keep ruling parties in power even when a majority votes for the opposition

Infobase Film on Demand

Fake News: Part 1 Fake news is more than a social media menace—it’s threatening critical thinking skills needed to develop information literacy. Combined with the impulse to share exciting, shocking and alarming stories, fake news is shaping—and distorting—perceptions, especially in younger demographics. In this video, viewers learn what drives fake news, how to spot it and how to de-bunk it. They’ll see how to distinguish between bias and accuracy, and opinion from fact. Vignettes that mimic online feeds and searches show how to detect completely false stories, slanted information, pure propaganda and misused data.
Fake News : Part 2 Fake news is prevalent because it seems so real. But passing it along via social media is more than sharing. It lends credibility to untrustworthy sources. By explaining click baits, bias and information bubbles, this video helps viewers discern what’s real and what’s not. Startling examples of altered photos reveal the skills employed by fake newsmongers. Cross-referencing to determine objective news sources and sites is explained along with reverse image search and expert confirmation. This video will assist viewers in getting past the hype of fake news to discover the real story.

SSRN - Fake news and legal issues

The Platform is the Message Facebook and YouTube have promised to take down Tide Pod Challenge videos. Easier said than done. For one thing, on the Internet, the line between advocacy and parody is undefined. Every meme, gif, and video is a bit of both. For another, these platforms are structurally at war with themselves. The same characteristics that make outrageous and offensive content unacceptable are what make it go viral in the first place.
Programming to Promote Information Literacy in the Era of Fake News Given the instant availability of information and the proliferation of questionable news, the ability to critically examine information before consuming it is of increasing importance. The need for excellent information literacy skills is evident, but lacking. This article highlights reasons for the resistance to existing information literacy efforts, and suggests components for information literacy programming, with a focus on fake news.
Fool Me Once: Regulating 'Fake News' and Other Online Advertising A lack of transparency for online political advertising has long been a problem in American political campaigns. Disinformation attacks that American voters have experienced since the 2016 campaign have made the need for regulatory action more pressing. Platforms desire self-regulation and have only recently come around to supporting transparency regulations. While government must not regulate the content of political speech, it can, and should, force transparency into the process.
The Marketplace of Fake News Fake news is a new name for an old problem. Disinformation, misinformation, hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and lies have long tried to influence public opinion. Fake news is enjoying another moment in the national discourse today because its proliferation on online social networks may have influenced a national election. Civil libertarians argue that fake news is part of the price we pay for a free society. It is part of the marketplace of ideas. In this essay, I argue that it is wrong to assume that fake news concerns ideas about which the public can debate. It doesn’t. Fake news does not concern ideas. It concerns facts. And the law treats ideas about facts and facts them-selves differently. So, too, does the marketplace of ideas analogy, which does not and was never meant to apply to basic facts. Therefore, I argue that the marketplace of ideas metaphor should not apply to fake news.
Real 'Fake News' and Fake 'Fake News' “Fake news” has become the central inflammatory charge in media discourse in the United States since the 2016 presidential contest. In the political realm, both intentionally fabricated information and the “fake news” defense by politicians confronted with negative press reports can potentially influence public beliefs and possibly even skew electoral results. Perhaps even more insidiously, as evidenced by President Trump’s dismissal of the traditional press as the “enemy of the American people,” the “fake news” accusation can serve as a power-shifting governance mechanism to delegitimize the institutional press as a whole. Both these strategic uses of “fake news”—to achieve specific political results and to destabilize the press as an institution—are self-evidently very dangerous for democracy. As if this were not a sufficient threat to the democratic order, however, “fake news” is also a threat, inter alia, to the stability of the financial markets as well. Whether for competitive advantage, terror, or geopolitical gamesmanship, the deployment of market-affecting fabricated information is a looming danger ahead. Simply put, therefore, “fake news” presents profound—and likely increasing—challenges for both the public and private spheres today. In light of this complexity, no single—or simple—tactic is sufficient to address the variety of challenges posed by the multi-headed phenomenon of “fake news.” This Article suggests beginning with a three-pronged approach—focusing on platform self-regulation, audience information literacy, and—perhaps counterintuitively—empowerment of the press itself. First, despite distrust of platform self-regulation, there is reason to believe that the threats posed by “fake news” to commercial interests may stimulate constructive solutions. Second, while cognitive science reveals limits to traditional information literacy approaches, interdisciplinary engagement may enhance the effectiveness of inevitably iterative information literacy initiatives in the “fake news” context. Third, in contrast to suggested solutions exploring express governmental attempts to prohibit or limit “fake news” directly, the Article instead recommends a reversal of current doctrine and practice in the form of a broad-based expansion of affirmative rights for the press. If given expanded protections, the professional press can transform the modern context of “fake news” into an opportunity to shine as watchdog and, hopefully, thereby rebuild public trust. Tools to empower the professional press can help forge alliances between the conservative and liberal wings of the traditional media, thereby isolating and minimizing the impact of newly-rising alt-right media entrants. The results will surely be imperfect, but the alternative is worse: a neutered and supine press operating merely to entertain a fragmented and polarized audience in an increasingly authoritarian global political and commercial environment. The mainstream press today is both demonized by the right and at risk from the left’s recent attempts to desacralize the First Amendment on the ground of its rightward ideological drift. In questioning that development, the Article suggests that progressive scholars’ critiques of recent libertarian doctrinal developments regarding the freedom of speech should in no way impede the recognition and enhancement of the First Amendment’s protections for a free and independent press. In that spirit, the Article appeals to courts, legislators, and government actors at every level to back up an ostensible commitment to free speech with an equally robust commitment to a free press. It also calls on the press to revise its practices in response.
The Case Against Fake News Gatekeeping by Social Networks Recent events such as Brexit and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election are said to have been partly attributable to the proliferation of fake news on the Internet. Studies have linked the proliferation of fake news to the engagement of actors in social networks, which raises the question on whether these platforms should actively prevent their use for the dissemination of false statements or reports, in a practice known as gatekeeping. This paper presents the case against fake news gatekeeping by social networks, which is based on three arguments: the threat to freedom of expression in the online space, the non-optimal position of social networks to curtail fake news, and the potential unintended result of proliferating fake news.
Fake News: A Legal Perspective The concept of “fake news” has garnered substantial attention in recent years, evolving from its satirical literary origins into a passionately criticized Internet phenomenon. Whether described as rumors, “counterknowledge,” misinformation, “post-truths,” “alternative facts” or just plain damned lies, these false statements of fact typically are published on Web sites and disseminated via social media for profit or social influence. While fake news publishers are regularly taken to task in the court of public opinion, we are unaware of any prior structured discussion of the unique legal issues surrounding the publication of fake news. This article evaluates examples of fake news publications to present a workable definition of “fake news” for purposes of our legal analysis. We then explore many of the legal and regulatory hurdles facing online fake news publishers. This article concludes by discussing some of the legal protections available to fake news publications and publishers of other online content.
Illiberal Democracy: The Toxic Mix of Fake News, Hyperpolarization, and Partisan Election Administration The 2016 presidential election shook American democracy to its foundations. From Russia’s hacking of Democratic National Committee emails to President Trump’s false allegations of widespread voting fraud, America’s democratic institutions emerged from the election battered and bruised. The stunning turn of events and the unprecedented controversy that surrounded the election had a profound impact on public opinion. National surveys now consistently find that a majority of Americans question the integrity of the nation’s election system. Accordingly, this article contends that we have entered into a dangerous new chapter in the nation’s history that not only threatens public confidence in election fairness but potentially could even undermine the long-term health of the nation’s democracy. The unjustified fear of election fraud has itself become a threat to America’s democratic principles. This article identifies three toxic developments that if left unchecked threaten the future of voting rights in America. The first is the rise of fake news. As the traditional news media has lost its gate-keeper status and as the internet has facilitated the rapid spread of misinformation, false allegations of voting fraud dominate news cycles. The pervasive nature of the claims has triggered a precipitous decline in public confidence in election integrity, even though there is no factual basis to justify the public’s fear of widespread fraud. The second is the phenomenon of hyperpolarization. The partisan divide has reached such historic levels that Republicans and Democrats increasingly view the opposing party as a threat to the nation’s well-being. Hyperpolarization makes partisans more inclined to attempt to limit the political influence of opposing voters, a development that is particularly dangerous in the United States because of the third toxic feature of contemporary politics: partisan control of election administration. Unusual among major democracies, the United States entrusts the majority party with responsibility for administering elections and setting voting rules. In recent years partisans have become increasingly aggressive in adopting election laws that benefit one party at the expense of the other. The real scandal of American politics is not illegal vote rigging or voter fraud but rather the extent to which partisans are legally permitted to manipulate election rules for political advantage. The United States thus stands at a uniquely dangerous moment in its history. The risk that America may evolve into an illiberal democracy is particularly high in light of the ongoing battle over voter registration restrictions and other laws that limit access to voting. In the name of safeguarding election integrity, legislatures across the country have adopted new voting laws that many courts and scholars have concluded make it harder for poor and minority voters to participate in the democratic process. As Americans increasingly view election stakes in apocalyptic terms, as false allegations of election fraud spread like wildfire, and as partisan officials control election rules, America’s democratic institutions face their most serious domestic challenge since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. This article concludes by proposing three steps to defend and preserve the vitality of America’s liberal democratic norms at this dangerous moment in the nation’s history.
Stings and Scams: ‘Fake News,’ the First Amendment, and the New Activist Journalism Constitutional law, technological innovations, and the rise of a cultural “right to know” have recently combined to yield “fake news,” as illustrated by an anti-abortion citizen-journalist sting operation that scammed Planned Parenthood. We find that the First Amendment, as construed by the Supreme Court, offers scant protection for activist journalists to go undercover to uncover wrongdoing, while providing substantial protection for the spread of falsehoods. By providing activists the means to reach sympathetic slices of the public, the emergence of social media has returned journalism to its roots in political activism, at the expense of purportedly objective and truthful investigative reporting. But the rise of “truthiness” — that is, falsehoods with the ring of truth, diffused through new forms of communication — threatens the integrity of the media. How to respond to these contradictions is a growing problem for advocates of free speech and liberal values more generally.
Law, Belief and Aspiration People often conflate three measurably distinct legal phenomena: laws, or formal legal rules; people’s beliefs about laws; and people’s aspirations for what laws should be. This paper argues that these phenomena differ from one another both descriptively (because each can and should be measured in different ways, and because those measures show that they diverge from one another), and in their prescriptive implications (in the sense that each bears on different normative theories of what law ought to be doing). Casual discussion of “the law” can easily obscure that “the law” exists in these multiple aspects, each of which has importantly distinct theoretical and practical implications, and each of which deserves its own form of empirical measurement. Depending on why they care about the law, different theorists and thinkers should care more about some of these aspects than others; and in measuring different aspects of “the law,” empiricists should be careful to choose tools that are best-suited to those measurements. This paper proposes a formalization of these distinctions through the use of what it calls the “legal triangle” model, which presents a way of distinguishing between (1) formal legal rules, (2) subjective legal beliefs, and (3) normative legal aspirations, and of conceiving of the relationships between each of these aspects. The structure of the model helps ensure that distinctive aspects of the law are treated distinctively; facilitates separate empirical measures for what should often be treated as independent variables; and helps in constructing empirical measures that are directly relevant to important theories of what the law does and ought to do. After presenting the model, the paper presents a simple empirical study that builds on the model to generate empirical data. The survey, administered to 868 participants in six states about ten state laws, was structured to separately measure (1) the recorded law in the state, (2) participants’ subjective belief about that law in their state, and (3) participants’ normative aspirations for the law. It finds routine divergence between formal legal rules, subjective beliefs, and normative aspirations. Furthermore, it finds that while rules, beliefs and aspirations diverge, the relationships between them are partially predictable. Most strikingly, beliefs and aspirations tend to covary, meaning that participants tended to believe that the law already is whatever they think it should be, and (in corollary) that participants tend to think the law should be whatever they believe it already is. In some cases, this effect is strong enough that people’s aspirations become more predictive of what they believe the law to be than the legal rules actually in force.
Fake News is Not an Antitrust Problem Recently, there have been prominent calls to use antitrust enforcement to achieve objectives beyond that of protecting the competitive process. Adding to this increasing litany is an appeal to use antitrust to regulate the distribution of “fake news.” Specifically, there is an assertion that Facebook competes with and is responsible for speeding the demise of “legitimate” news sites by offering a favorable platform for “fake news.” In this article, we address this allegation in a standard monopolization and dominance framework. Ultimately, we find that fake news is not an antitrust problem and question whether fake news can or should be regulated — in the form of antitrust or otherwise.
Real 'Fake News' and Fake 'Fake News' “Fake news” has become the central inflammatory charge in media discourse in the United States since the 2016 presidential contest. In the political realm, both intentionally fabricated information and the “fake news” defense by politicians confronted with negative press reports can potentially influence public beliefs and possibly even skew electoral results. Perhaps even more insidiously, as evidenced by President Trump’s dismissal of the traditional press as the “enemy of the American people,” the “fake news” accusation can serve as a power-shifting governance mechanism to delegitimize the institutional press as a whole. Both these strategic uses of “fake news”—to achieve specific political results and to destabilize the press as an institution—are self-evidently very dangerous for democracy. As if this were not a sufficient threat to the democratic order, however, “fake news” is also a threat, inter alia, to the stability of the financial markets as well. Whether for competitive advantage, terror, or geopolitical gamesmanship, the deployment of market-affecting fabricated information is a looming danger ahead. Simply put, therefore, “fake news” presents profound—and likely increasing—challenges for both the public and private spheres today.
Is the First Amendment Obsolete? The First Amendment was a dead letter for much of American history. Unfortunately, there is reason to fear it is entering a new period of political irrelevance. We live in a golden age of efforts by governments and other actors to control speech, discredit and harass the press, and manipulate public debate. Yet as these efforts mount, and the expressive environment deteriorates, the First Amendment has been confined to a narrow and frequently irrelevant role. Hence the question — when it comes to political speech in the twenty-first century, is the First Amendment obsolete? The most important change in the expressive environment can be boiled down to one idea: it is no longer speech itself that is scarce, but the attention of listeners. Emerging threats to public discourse take advantage of this change. Instead of targeting speakers directly, it targets listeners or it undermines speakers indirectly. More precisely, emerging techniques of speech control depend on (1) a range of new punishments, like unleashing “troll armies” to abuse the press and other critics, and (2) “fooding” tactics (sometimes called “reverse censorship”) that distort or drown out disfavored speech through the creation and dissemination of fake news, the payment of fake commentators, and the deployment of propaganda robots.

HeinOnline

Cases

Leidig v. Buzzfeed Synopsis Background: News agency and its founder brought action against internet media company, alleging libel in connection with an article published by media company regarding agency and founder. After their motion for partial summary judgment was denied, 2017 WL 2303670, agency and founder filed a motion to extend the time to move and a motion for reconsideration. Holdings: The District Court, Victor Marrero, J., held that: 1 agency and owner failed to establish “excusable neglect,” warranting extension of the 14-day period in which to file motion to reconsider court's previous order denying agency and owner's motion for partial summary judgment, and 2 agency and founder were not entitled to reconsideration of district court's previous order denying partial summary judgment on their libel claim against internet media company, even if excusable neglect warranted an extension of time for them to file motion.
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Books

Bunk by Kevin Young Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction "There Kevin Young goes again, giving us books we greatly need, cleverly disguised as books we merely want. Unexpectedly essential."--Marlon James Award-winning poet and critic Kevin Young tours us through a rogue's gallery of hoaxers, plagiarists, forgers, and fakers--from the humbug of P. T. Barnum and Edgar Allan Poe to the unrepentant bunk of JT LeRoy and Donald J. Trump.Bunk traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, examining what motivates hucksters and makes the rest of us so gullible. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion, race being the most insidious American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington, and What Is It?, an African American man Barnum professed was a newly discovered missing link in evolution. Bunk then turns to the hoaxing of history and the ways that forgers, plagiarists, and journalistic fakers invent backstories and falsehoods to sell us lies about themselves and about the world in our own time, from pretend Native Americans Grey Owl and Nasdijj to the deadly imposture of Clark Rockefeller, from the made-up memoirs of James Frey to the identity theft of Rachel Dolezal. In this brilliant and timely work, Young asks what it means to live in a post-factual world of "truthiness" where everything is up for interpretation and everyone is subject to a pervasive cynicism that damages our ideas of reality, fact, and art.
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Call Number: HV6691.Y674 2017
ISBN: 155597791X
Publication Date: 2017-11-14
The Smear: How shady political operatives and fake news control what you see, what you think, and how you vote by Sharyl Attkisson New York Times Bestseller Ever wonder how politics turned into a take-no-prisoners blood sport? The New York Times bestselling author of Stonewalled pulls back the curtain on the shady world of opposition research and reveals the dirty tricks those in power use to influence your opinions. Behind most major political stories in the modern era, there is an agenda; an effort by opposition researchers, spin doctors, and outside interests to destroy an idea or a person. The tactic they use is the Smear. Every day, Americans are influenced by the Smear without knowing it. Paid forces cleverly shape virtually every image you cross. Maybe you read that Donald Trump is a racist misogynist, or saw someone on the news mocking the Bernie Sanders campaign. The trick of the Smear is that it is often based on some shred of truth, but these media-driven "hit pieces" are designed to obscure the truth. Success hinges on the Smear artist's ability to remain invisible; to make it seem as if their work is neither calculated nor scripted. It must appear to be precisely what it is not. Veteran journalist Sharyl Attkisson has witnessed this practice firsthand. After years of being pitched hit jobs and puff pieces, she's an expert at detecting Smear campaigns. Now, the hard-hitting investigative reporter shares her inside knowledge, revealing how the Smear takes shape and who its perpetrators are--including Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal and, most influential of all, "right-wing assassin turned left-wing assassin" (National Review) political operative David Brock and his Media Matters for America empire. Attkisson exposes the diabolical tactics of Smear artists, and their outrageous access to the biggest names in political media--operatives who are corrupting the political process, and discouraging widespread citizen involvement in our democracy.
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Call Number: PN4888.C6.A85 2017
ISBN: 0062468162
Publication Date: 2017-06-27
Weaponized Lies by Daniel J. Levitin Previously Published as A Field Guide to Lies We're surrounded by fringe theories, fake news, and pseudo-facts. These lies are getting repeated. New York Times bestselling author Daniel Levitin shows how to disarm these socially devastating inventions and get the American mind back on track. Here are the fundamental lessons in critical thinking that we need to know and share now. Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can give a grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions. Wordy arguments on the other hand can easily be persuasive as they drift away from the facts in an appealing yet misguided way. The steps we can take to better evaluate news, advertisements, and reports are clearly detailed. Ultimately, Levitin turns to what underlies our ability to determine if something is true or false: the scientific method. He grapples with the limits of what we can and cannot know. Case studies are offered to demonstrate the applications of logical thinking to quite varied settings, spanning courtroom testimony, medical decision making, magic, modern physics, and conspiracy theories. This urgently needed book enables us to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. As Levitin attests: Truth matters. A post-truth era is an era of willful irrationality, reversing all the great advances humankind has made. Euphemisms like "fringe theories," "extreme views," "alt truth," and even "fake news" can literally be dangerous. Let's call lies what they are and catch those making them in the act.
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Call Number: BC177.L486 2017
ISBN: 1101983825
Publication Date: 2017-03-07
Winning Votes by Abusing Reason by Jamie Watson Over the past few decades, psychologists have discovered that human reasoning is defective in surprising ways. We are beset by numerous biases and heuristics, which lead us to reason poorly about things that matter to us. And while there are illuminating evolutionary explanations for how these biases and heuristics may have benefited our species in its phylogeny, psychologists are unanimous that these cognitive dispositions largely corrupt rather than aid our belief-forming practices. In Winning Votes by Abusing Reason: Political Rhetoric and Responsible Belief, Jamie Watson argues that political rhetoric, rather than helping us overcome these defects, exacerbates them. And standard attempts to address this problem, such as deliberative democracy and paternalism, tend to either exclude citizens from important decisions or give them the illusion of reasoning well, perpetuating poor and irresponsible political beliefs. This book concludes that, rather than attempt more political solutions, the most promising approach to forming and preserving responsible political beliefs is to adopt individual principles of epistemic caution. The author brings together insights from political philosophy, social epistemology, behavioral psychology, and agnotology to suggest how we might protect our belief-forming behavior from the corrosive effects of political rhetoric. Recommended for scholars of philosophy, rhetoric, political science, and communications.
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Call Number: P301.5 P67 W38 2017 OR Online
ISBN: 9781498516426
Publication Date: 2016-12-14
The Stewart/Colbert Effect by Amarnath Amarasingam (Editor) The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report have attracted much interest in recent years from popular audiences as well as scholars in various disciplines. Both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have been named on Time magazine's list of the most influential people in the world. The ten essays in this interdisciplinary collection explore the issues engendered by the popularity of entertainment news, including the role of satire in politics, the declining level of trust in traditional sources of media, the shows' cathartic or informational function, and the ways in which these shows influence public opinion. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Call Number: PN1992.77.D28S74 2011
ISBN: 0786458860
Publication Date: 2011-05-02
Navigating Fake News, Alternative Facts, and Misinformation in a Post-Truth World by Kimiz Dalkir (Editor); Rebecca Katz (Editor) In the current day and age, objective facts have less influence on opinions and decisions than personal emotions and beliefs. Many individuals rely on their social networks to gather information thanks to social media's ability to share information rapidly and over a much greater geographic range. However, this creates an overall false balance as people tend to seek out information that is compatible with their existing views and values. They deliberately seek out "facts" and data that specifically support their conclusions and classify any information that contradicts their beliefs as "false news." Navigating Fake News, Alternative Facts, and Misinformation in a Post-Truth World is a collection of innovative research on human and automated methods to deter the spread of misinformation online, such as legal or policy changes, information literacy workshops, and algorithms that can detect fake news dissemination patterns in social media. While highlighting topics including source credibility, share culture, and media literacy, this book is ideally designed for social media managers, technology and software developers, IT specialists, educators, columnists, writers, editors, journalists, broadcasters, newscasters, researchers, policymakers, and students.
Call Number: ZA3075 .N385 2020
ISBN: 9781799825449
Publication Date: 2020-02-28
Reimagining Journalism in a Post-Truth World by Ed Madison; Ben DeJarnette; Frank Sesno (Foreword by) Amidst "alternative facts" and "post-truth" politics, news journalism is more important and complex than ever. This book examines journalism's evolution within digital media's ecosystem where lies often spread faster than truth, and consumers expect conversations, not lectures. Tthe 2016 U.S. presidential election delivered a stunning result, but the news media's breathless coverage of it was no surprise. News networks turned debates into primetime entertainment, reporters spent more time covering poll results than public policy issues, and the cozy relationship between journalists and political insiders helped ensure intrigue and ratings, even as it eroded journalism's role as democracy's "Fourth Estate." Against this sobering backdrop, a broadcast news veteran and a millennial newshound consider how journalism can regain the public's trust by learning from pioneers both within and beyond the profession. Connecting the dots between faux news, "fake news," and real news, coauthors Madison and DeJarnette provide an unflinching analysis of where mainstream journalism went wrong--and what the next generation of reporters can do to make it right. The significance of Donald Trump's presidency is not lost on the authors, but Reimagining Journalism in a Post-Truth World is not a post-mortem of the 2016 presidential election, nor is it a how-to guide for reporting on Trump's White House. Instead, this accessible and engaging book offers a broader perspective on contemporary journalism, pairing lively anecdotes with insightful analysis of long-term trends and challenges. Drawing on their expertise in media innovation and entrepreneurship, the authors explore how comedians like John Oliver, Trevor Noah, and Samantha Bee are breaking (and reshaping) the rules of political journalism; how legacy media outlets like The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The New York Times are retooling for the digital age; and how newcomers like Vice, Hearken, and De Correspondent are innovating new models for reporting and storytelling. Anyone seeking to make sense of modern journalism and its intersections with democracy will want to read this book.
Call Number: Online Access
ISBN: 9781440854767
Publication Date: 2018-02-08

General articles on fake news

What Legal Recourse Do Victims Of Fake News Stories Have?
Forget algorithms — use legal liability to help stem tide of fake news
Businessman's fake news troll halted by injunction in legal first
Spotting Fake News - AALL Spectrum
Genevieve Zook, Best Practices for Authenticating Trustworthy Sources, July/August 2017 issue, page 22.
Lies, Damned Lies And Statistics: How Bad Statistics Are Feeding Fake News
Ideas for E.L.L.s: Finding Reliable Sources in a World of ‘Fake News’ The ideas in this lesson are specifically for English-language learners and their teachers since, though sorting “fake news” from real news is increasingly difficult for all of us, for E.L.L.’s, the language barrier adds an additional layer of complexity. The strategies and tools below, therefore, do not depend so much on understanding the nuances of the English language as they do on common sense and critical thinking.
10 Journalism Brands Where You Find Real Facts Rather Than Alternative Facts Where do we most often find real truth, real facts in a new era of Internet hoaxes, fake news stories and new political administrations that tout their own "alternative facts"?

How juries are fooled by statistics - Ted Talk

Statistics can be misleading whether intentional or not. Here is an excellent Ted talk where Peter Donnelly reveals how mistakes in interpreting statistics can have a devastating impact on criminal trials.

Poynter

Hands-on Fact-Checking: A Short Course
Designed for college students as a self-directed course or as a resource for classroom instructors, this course is approximately 90-minutes.
Regret the Error
Craig Silverman reports on trends and issues regarding media accuracy and the discipline of verification.Stories about errors, corrections, fact checking and verification.

Journalism and Fake News

Cambridge Analytica

American Bar Association

Lies and Libel: Fake news lacks straightforward cure “In the last year, especially during the election, fake news became very pervasive,” says Larry Atkins, a journalist and adjunct professor at both Temple University and Arcadia University. This has not merely harmed people’s reputations; it has produced pernicious effects for U.S. politics and society. Fabricated news stories are causing a great deal of confusion about the basic facts of current issues and events, according to 64 percent of U.S. adults surveyed in December by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research organization.
Fake news has long held a role in American history

Florida Bar

“Cybersecurity, Fake News, and the Trump Administration” Keynote speaker Katie S. Phang, a partner at Berger Singerman law firm in Miami and a legal contributor for NBC/MSNBC, along with other well-known lawyers, journalists, government officials, and professors, will sort it out at the 2017 Florida Bar Media Law Conference.
Scam artist creates fake e-filing account in real lawyer’s name Identity thieves targeted at least one unsuspecting Florida lawyer with a brazen new scam and walked away with over $130,000.

Fake News and Finding Reliable Sources: Books and Articles