How do I fact-check the news (step by step)?
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Sometimes when I need a break from work, I read newstories and yell at fascists in the comments. Occasionally, during their barrage of what-aboutisms, they will reference something I'm unfamiliar with.
The first thing I do is Google what they referenced. For any legislative action, you can read the bill or law. For anything that goes through the court, you can look up the docket. Read what the charges are and the evidence brought forward. Raw data is the most trustworthy, but it can be hard to understand. See what your favorite news source has to say about it, and then see what FOX says. Compare and contrast. What is each side saying, what is each side NOT saying? Just as Trump does no wrong on FOX, there may be some shady things going on that your team isn't talking about.
The first thing I do is Google what they referenced. For any legislative action, you can read the bill or law. For anything that goes through the court, you can look up the docket. Read what the charges are and the evidence brought forward. Raw data is the most trustworthy, but it can be hard to understand.
I tried this with my father. He'd spout off some fox news garbage, I'd do all this research and send him an email explaining everything with the sources linked, and he would just reply with another fox news article...
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I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the âwestern propagandaâ, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her âyou sound like you read FOX newsâ. She replied with âhahah yes, how did you know?â
This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.
How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesnât fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Teach her about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
tl;dr: itâs not enough to find a theory that fits the facts â famously âall swans are whiteâ â you have try and then fail to falsify your own theory â for examplefinding a single black swan.
In this case itâs not enough to watch Fox News and hear something about Trump that sounds good â and then stop â you have to look for evidence that Trump is not a good leader and then fail to. But of course we know there is lots of counter evidence soâŚ
This is a basic premise of scientific method.
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I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the âwestern propagandaâ, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her âyou sound like you read FOX newsâ. She replied with âhahah yes, how did you know?â
This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.
How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesnât fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
wrote last edited by [email protected]One general rule is to get as much information as possible from true experts - people who work on the specific subject that they are discussing, at least in broad fields of knowledge (e.g. history, biology, computers, law). Don't rely on a single person or team of people to be your one-stop-shop for information. As much as possible, the experts should be independent of each other. While a historian and a biologist may both work at universities, and you may learn about both of them from a reporter, they likely do not have daily contact with each other and likely have not ever met... but stay aware of 'where they are coming from'. When an interesting topic is raised, be willing to track down the original source and learn more directly from them.
Get information from sources that treat you seriously. For instance both NPR and the Economist both focus on in-depth reporting about a wide variety of topics. In contrast, TV news tends to be full of fluff. Ignore fluff peddlers. Ignore those who talk in circles about today's minor scandal or "breaking story", and instead focus on those who give you information that will still be useful a year from now.
Before you can check facts, you need to know what are reliable sources. This is a long term process. If I need to go to one place, Wikipedia is a good starting point to get 'all sides' of a topic (usually), with links to primary sources.
A long term strategy is to build general background knowledge rather than relying on case-by-case fact checking. Especially science and history. If you have that knowledge, a lot of the spin becomes immediately obvious, and you quickly identify who is worth listening to (of course, you need to first find reliable sources for history and science, and not get caught in partisan echo chambers. Just don't turn to politicians and TV pundits for your history lessons).
I like academics because they mainly communicate with other experts and know they can't get away with BS, while TV hosts and politicians mainly communicate with people who are easy to fool.
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I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the âwestern propagandaâ, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her âyou sound like you read FOX newsâ. She replied with âhahah yes, how did you know?â
This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.
How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesnât fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
wrote last edited by [email protected]If you donât have independent confirmation for the specific event, you could do a simple application of Bayes' theorem.
If (say) FOX is reporting something and youâre not sure how much credence to give it, ask yourself:A. How often does this sort of thing happen in general? (Check historical sources.)
B. How often does FOX claim this type of thing happens? (Check Google trends.)
C. How likely is FOX to report this if it actually happens? (If it fits their narrative, probably close to 1.)
Then you can estimate the likelihood of the report being true as AC/B.
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I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the âwestern propagandaâ, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her âyou sound like you read FOX newsâ. She replied with âhahah yes, how did you know?â
This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.
How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesnât fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
Similar to what another person referenced, the journalists I follow almost always cite their sources. The news they deliver is often just referencing legislation or other documents and summarizing it, combined with some opinion. For me this type of news is just a Tl;Dr of stuff that's complex or long to read, and because they're citing what they're saying (and often showing it in full somwhere on the screen or blog), I trust that they're not taking it out of context.
For studies or reports on studies, I like to look at who is funding the study.
For other news, I will often trust when a reporter is or has been onsite. Eg. A protest or something in a city and they have actual footage of themselves there. Of course, that'll all come with a bias, but I am willing to accept that risk.
For bias checks, I often will ask myself questions: why did they word it a certain way? What point of view is missing here? Who is gaining from this?
When a reporter or news group shows me time and again that they can be trusted, then I will more easily trust them.
I also always check new sources on mediabiasfactcheck.com as they have full analyses to figure out if a source is left/right leaning and how factually they have reported historically.
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I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the âwestern propagandaâ, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her âyou sound like you read FOX newsâ. She replied with âhahah yes, how did you know?â
This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.
How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesnât fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
wrote last edited by [email protected]The news is a propaganda machine designed to output a dual-pronged attack ironically outlined by your post. For skeptics like yourself the constant stream of misinfo will have you fact checking senseless data that you instinctively know to be true or false based on observation, wasting your time. however when presented in the news or by aquaintences It challenges you to correct them, this is a job for a team of the same magnitude as the news stations themselves.
For the indoctrinated Its just a constant echochamber of new info that helps fortify new or previously fabricated info, and gives them talking points to repeat to anyone even minorly skeptical of the regime.
Your experience with your friend IS part of the manipulation. the only way out is to attempt to focus on what is local to you and within your control (dont ignore the macro issues obviously just try not to focus on them). Getting involved with local politics, speak with real people and rather than attacking their facts. Attack their logic, similarly to how you are trying to get your friend understand her bias and where that stems from.
being a victim of propaganda, being religeous, being part of a subculture, having unresloved trauma, having children, never being properly taught logic or Epistemology (edit:this word is so important cant believe i forgot it.), all of these and more contribute to bias.
To answer your question, there are organizations that do fact checking but im also skeptical of those because who watches the watchers? How do they afford to exist? Do the fact checkers have bias themselves? Its a never ending cycle of bullshit.
No doom and gloom though (they want you to feel defeated) because there is still tons to appreciate, so many people are waking up. Lots of individuals attacking "the system" from every possible angle all across the world. All it takes is some mildly uncomfortable conversations with the people you care about, and patience, LOTS of patience.
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I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the âwestern propagandaâ, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her âyou sound like you read FOX newsâ. She replied with âhahah yes, how did you know?â
This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.
How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesnât fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
The quickest and easiest version I have for fact checking is to check the source of the story, usually thatâs in article. Check the ownership of the company, who owns it and whatâs their agenda, that usually leads to who is their audience, who are they writing for and why. Is it to sell ads or actually pass on info. Also, if some thing is too goo to be true, it usually is but do the fact checking to confirm.
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Teach her about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
tl;dr: itâs not enough to find a theory that fits the facts â famously âall swans are whiteâ â you have try and then fail to falsify your own theory â for examplefinding a single black swan.
In this case itâs not enough to watch Fox News and hear something about Trump that sounds good â and then stop â you have to look for evidence that Trump is not a good leader and then fail to. But of course we know there is lots of counter evidence soâŚ
This is a basic premise of scientific method.
This Is the best response Ive read so far. The only thing id add is that this falls under Epistemology. that word alone IMO is dangerous to any regime.
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Teach her about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
tl;dr: itâs not enough to find a theory that fits the facts â famously âall swans are whiteâ â you have try and then fail to falsify your own theory â for examplefinding a single black swan.
In this case itâs not enough to watch Fox News and hear something about Trump that sounds good â and then stop â you have to look for evidence that Trump is not a good leader and then fail to. But of course we know there is lots of counter evidence soâŚ
This is a basic premise of scientific method.
I'm still waiting for evidence that Trump is a good leader, since all of the things he is supposedly doing are not actually true.
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I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the âwestern propagandaâ, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her âyou sound like you read FOX newsâ. She replied with âhahah yes, how did you know?â
This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.
How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesnât fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
Think hard:
it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff
How would you know that?
Can you really know that?
How and where have you first met this person?
what can I do step-by-step to verify the news
One neccessary precondition is: You need to love critical thinking.
My questions above were meant as an example for that. You don't need to answer them. But if you felt uncomfortable when you read them, then think about your own critical thinking.
My recommendation is: talk to your friend about critical thinking.
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Think hard:
it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff
How would you know that?
Can you really know that?
How and where have you first met this person?
what can I do step-by-step to verify the news
One neccessary precondition is: You need to love critical thinking.
My questions above were meant as an example for that. You don't need to answer them. But if you felt uncomfortable when you read them, then think about your own critical thinking.
My recommendation is: talk to your friend about critical thinking.
wrote last edited by [email protected]How would you know that?
She admitted that herself that she doesnât trust non-Chinese media a year ago. Also, itâs pretty clear given how clueless she was about that thereâs not a single âWestern propagandaâ yet even within the same country the media outlets donât have one single propaganda message. I told her about that and she was genuinely surprised to hear that, for instance, the western media are split on the Israel issue and thereâs not a single fixed propaganda message. Or that not all the media support Trump and some are anti-Trump while others are pro-Trump. She thought all the western media are always supportive towards the currently ruling âwesternâ leaders
Can you really know that?
Yes
How and where have you first met this person?
During a trip abroad. It was her first time abroad
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The quickest and easiest version I have for fact checking is to check the source of the story, usually thatâs in article. Check the ownership of the company, who owns it and whatâs their agenda, that usually leads to who is their audience, who are they writing for and why. Is it to sell ads or actually pass on info. Also, if some thing is too goo to be true, it usually is but do the fact checking to confirm.
I am afraid Fox doesnât provide with the sources
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I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the âwestern propagandaâ, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her âyou sound like you read FOX newsâ. She replied with âhahah yes, how did you know?â
This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.
How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesnât fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
You can still get extremely distorted news even if your news sources don't tell actual falsehoods. It's enough for them to shade and slant the truth, and present it selectively. To some extent you can identify corrupting influences and then look for sources that are less affected by those influences, but eventually you can only vet the news by comparing it to the real world.
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Similar to what another person referenced, the journalists I follow almost always cite their sources. The news they deliver is often just referencing legislation or other documents and summarizing it, combined with some opinion. For me this type of news is just a Tl;Dr of stuff that's complex or long to read, and because they're citing what they're saying (and often showing it in full somwhere on the screen or blog), I trust that they're not taking it out of context.
For studies or reports on studies, I like to look at who is funding the study.
For other news, I will often trust when a reporter is or has been onsite. Eg. A protest or something in a city and they have actual footage of themselves there. Of course, that'll all come with a bias, but I am willing to accept that risk.
For bias checks, I often will ask myself questions: why did they word it a certain way? What point of view is missing here? Who is gaining from this?
When a reporter or news group shows me time and again that they can be trusted, then I will more easily trust them.
I also always check new sources on mediabiasfactcheck.com as they have full analyses to figure out if a source is left/right leaning and how factually they have reported historically.
1 dimentional left-right spectrum itself is biased.
I mean, Xinhua would be considered "left" and RT news would be considered "right" but they would both blame "the west" for russia's invasion of Ukraine, so this creates a false sense of nonpartisanship.
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Teach her about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
tl;dr: itâs not enough to find a theory that fits the facts â famously âall swans are whiteâ â you have try and then fail to falsify your own theory â for examplefinding a single black swan.
In this case itâs not enough to watch Fox News and hear something about Trump that sounds good â and then stop â you have to look for evidence that Trump is not a good leader and then fail to. But of course we know there is lots of counter evidence soâŚ
This is a basic premise of scientific method.
While this is great advice, it requires the ability to distinguish plausible from implausible claims and from what OP describes, we're not at that point yet.
E.g. if you google "why is Trump a bad leader." And then read i.e. "Tariffs are hurting the economy." And then you look for "Are tariffs good for the economy?" you will find pages both saying they are and they aren't.
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You can still get extremely distorted news even if your news sources don't tell actual falsehoods. It's enough for them to shade and slant the truth, and present it selectively. To some extent you can identify corrupting influences and then look for sources that are less affected by those influences, but eventually you can only vet the news by comparing it to the real world.
For a detailed explanation and analysis of how mass media is manipulating read
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media -
One general rule is to get as much information as possible from true experts - people who work on the specific subject that they are discussing, at least in broad fields of knowledge (e.g. history, biology, computers, law). Don't rely on a single person or team of people to be your one-stop-shop for information. As much as possible, the experts should be independent of each other. While a historian and a biologist may both work at universities, and you may learn about both of them from a reporter, they likely do not have daily contact with each other and likely have not ever met... but stay aware of 'where they are coming from'. When an interesting topic is raised, be willing to track down the original source and learn more directly from them.
Get information from sources that treat you seriously. For instance both NPR and the Economist both focus on in-depth reporting about a wide variety of topics. In contrast, TV news tends to be full of fluff. Ignore fluff peddlers. Ignore those who talk in circles about today's minor scandal or "breaking story", and instead focus on those who give you information that will still be useful a year from now.
Before you can check facts, you need to know what are reliable sources. This is a long term process. If I need to go to one place, Wikipedia is a good starting point to get 'all sides' of a topic (usually), with links to primary sources.
A long term strategy is to build general background knowledge rather than relying on case-by-case fact checking. Especially science and history. If you have that knowledge, a lot of the spin becomes immediately obvious, and you quickly identify who is worth listening to (of course, you need to first find reliable sources for history and science, and not get caught in partisan echo chambers. Just don't turn to politicians and TV pundits for your history lessons).
I like academics because they mainly communicate with other experts and know they can't get away with BS, while TV hosts and politicians mainly communicate with people who are easy to fool.
One general rule is to get as much information as possible from true experts
Trusting "experts" isn't exactly always a great idea, especially with the context of OP's friend in which the CCP being able to censor any dissenting opinions, so you're just reenforcing their adversion of skepticism.
It's ironic how the US's downfall is because the people are so overly skeptical of government, they end up inventing crazy conspiracy theories, meanwhile in mainland China, they are not being skeptical of the central government enough. There is has to be a resonable level of skepticism somewhere.
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The first thing I do is Google what they referenced. For any legislative action, you can read the bill or law. For anything that goes through the court, you can look up the docket. Read what the charges are and the evidence brought forward. Raw data is the most trustworthy, but it can be hard to understand.
I tried this with my father. He'd spout off some fox news garbage, I'd do all this research and send him an email explaining everything with the sources linked, and he would just reply with another fox news article...
Yeah.
If everything they say is proven wrong they'll respond with "I don't care".
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I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the âwestern propagandaâ, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her âyou sound like you read FOX newsâ. She replied with âhahah yes, how did you know?â
This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.
How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesnât fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
I never trust any source of information.
For every article, no matter the source, I think if what they say is logical and coherent. If there's any conflict of interest or if the source may be interested into pushing a particular agenda. If there's something real attached, like the article is talking about a new law or scientific paper or something officially published, or maybe a video, I try to go find the original source and read it directly.
After all that I try to only believe the parts that I could verify or find logical and coherent, discarding the rest as that particular media propaganda (which is also useful to know that several people is going to think that).
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While this is great advice, it requires the ability to distinguish plausible from implausible claims and from what OP describes, we're not at that point yet.
E.g. if you google "why is Trump a bad leader." And then read i.e. "Tariffs are hurting the economy." And then you look for "Are tariffs good for the economy?" you will find pages both saying they are and they aren't.
I experienced this when we had the brexit vote. I had separate leaflets coming through the door every day.
One pro-leave said if we voted leave we'd have more money for pensions, health care, education and have better jobs.
One pro-remain said if we voted remain we'd have more money for pensions, health care, education and have better jobs.
These came through in the same post delivery.
