How do I fact-check the news (step by step)?
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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 “western propaganda”, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her “you sound like you read FOX news”. She replied with “hahah yes, how did you know?”
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 doesn’t 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 doesn’t trust non-Chinese media a year ago. Also, it’s pretty clear given how clueless she was about that there’s not a single “Western propaganda” yet even within the same country the media outlets don’t 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 there’s 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 “western” 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 that’s in article. Check the ownership of the company, who owns it and what’s 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 doesn’t 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 “western propaganda”, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her “you sound like you read FOX news”. She replied with “hahah yes, how did you know?”
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 doesn’t 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: it’s not enough to find a theory that fits the facts — famously “all swans are white” — you have try and then fail to falsify your own theory — for examplefinding a single black swan.
In this case it’s not enough to watch Fox News and hear something about Trump that sounds good — and then stop — 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 so…
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 “western propaganda”, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her “you sound like you read FOX news”. She replied with “hahah yes, how did you know?”
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 doesn’t 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.
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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 “western propaganda”, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her “you sound like you read FOX news”. She replied with “hahah yes, how did you know?”
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 doesn’t fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
wrote last edited by [email protected]There's the S.I.F.T. method which can be pretty quick and effective.
Stands for - Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, Trace claims -
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 “western propaganda”, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her “you sound like you read FOX news”. She replied with “hahah yes, how did you know?”
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 doesn’t fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Sources like Ground News help to show where the bias of your sources lay. Mind you, even neutral sources have their issues since they may not cover more serious “partisan” topics, even if the material is very disturbing.
Ground News does have a Blind Spot tool as well to help show most stories that the other side is not talking about, excluding the very serious ones I mentioned.
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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.
But that’s no different from any other kind of conflicting evidence in any scientific process. What’s required to distinguish plausible from not isn’t “intelligence” per se, it’s determination to continue asking more questions in order to gather more data.
For example if one source says “tariffs will pay off the debt”, and another says “tariffs will cause inflation” reasonable disambiguating questions to ask might be “have tariffs paid off the debt in the past?” or “have tariffs caused inflation in the past?”
The key is to 1. Not stop with positive evidence, but to continue to fail to find negative evidence 2. Not stop with opinions but find a balance of facts
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There's the S.I.F.T. method which can be pretty quick and effective.
Stands for - Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, Trace claimsI took a media literacy course and they talked about SIFT, CRAAP and others like it.
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Sources like Ground News help to show where the bias of your sources lay. Mind you, even neutral sources have their issues since they may not cover more serious “partisan” topics, even if the material is very disturbing.
Ground News does have a Blind Spot tool as well to help show most stories that the other side is not talking about, excluding the very serious ones I mentioned.
Do they still call CNN leftist?
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Do they still call CNN leftist?
wrote last edited by [email protected]They label it as “leans left” now, with independent reviewers, so not as left as other sources. Although, I question if that takes into account the topics that don’t make it on the website.
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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.
It can be hard to identify experts, and sometimes experts are still being told what to say by others, so you actually need to identify independent experts.
Sometimes we rely on institutional endorsement to identify experts, but that relies on the institutions themselves being independent and being primarily focused on promoting expertise.
There are other ways to identify experts, but they can be difficult to apply until you have a lot of experience with experts. There are a lot of people out there who feign expertise -- for instance, it's common for conspiracy theorists to write long books with lots of footnotes. I'm afraid that the new generative AI systems will make in much easier to feign expertise. -
I am afraid Fox doesn’t provide with the sources
Then that's a sign that Fox news (or whatever source) isn't a useful source. That's where people need to get their heads straight. Trying to fact check unsourced claims is a sucker's game - it's easier to make a BS claim than to fact check it, especially when the claims are produced by a billion-dollar propaganda machine.
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Sources like Ground News help to show where the bias of your sources lay. Mind you, even neutral sources have their issues since they may not cover more serious “partisan” topics, even if the material is very disturbing.
Ground News does have a Blind Spot tool as well to help show most stories that the other side is not talking about, excluding the very serious ones I mentioned.
I really like ground news. I have the cheap plan, like $10/yr. Worth it.
