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Fake News Education at UMFK: Check your own claim!

Practice makes perfect

Use the tips throughout this LibGuide to check your own claim, or use one of the claims listed below for practice.  Remember, fake news articles may fall under multiple categories and might even mix in a few facts amid their falsehoods.

Select a claim to examine

Other tips for fact checking and avoiding fake news

  1. When you open up a news article in your browser, open a second, empty tab.  Use that second window to look up claims, author credentials and organizations that you come across in the article.
  2. Fake news spans across all kinds of media - printed and online articles, podcasts, YouTube videos, radio shows, even still images. Be prepared to double-check everything.
  3. Beware of confirmation bias.  Just because you might agree with what an article is saying doesn't mean it's true.
  4. As Mad-Eye Moody said in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, "Constant Vigilance!"  Always be ready to fact check.
  5. Even the best researchers will be fooled once in a while.  If you find yourself fooled by a fake news story, use your experience as a learning tool.

What makes real news real?

Things to think about

Doublecheck

Attribution

Guide originally created by librarians at the Indiana University East Campus Library. This guide is licensed under a Creative Commons license. UMFK Blake LIbrary staff uphold the original intent of the guide as stated by its creator:

"Please feel free to share this guide with others.  If you are a librarian or teacher, you are welcome to use this guide and its contents for your own purposes.  

Creative Commons License logo - BY NC
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please note that I do not give permission for any part of this LibGuide to be used for any for-profit endeavors, including publication."