Media Literacy & Fake News

Fact Checking Tools

According to Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers, the following fact-checking organizations focused on US national news are generally regarded as reputable:

• Politifact

• FactCheck.org

• Washington Post Fact Checker

• Snopes

• Truth be Told

• NPR Fact Check

• Hoax Slayer

Games, Simulations, and Quizzes

• Factitious

• Informable (News Literacy Project)

• Quiz: How Well Can You Tell Factual From Opinion Statements? (Pew Research Center)

• Spot the Troll (Clemson University Media Forensics Hub)

• When Seeing Is No Longer Believing: Inside the Pentagon's Race Against Deepfake Videos (CNN)

• Spot the Deepfake Quiz (Center for an Informed Public)

• Can You Spot When You're Being Phished? (Google)

• News Lit Quizzes from the News Literacy Project:

Can you make sense of data?
Should you share it?
So, what’s the First Amendment?
How news-literate are you?
Fighting falsehoods on social media
Get smart about COVID-19

Evaluating Information

• Evaluating Sources (AHS Research Handbook)

• Checkology (now free for all users!!)

• Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers (Mike Caulfield)

• SIFT (The Four Moves) (Mike Caulfield)

• Verifying Online Information (First Draft) (includes information about verifying images, videos, and social media accounts)

• Media Bias Ratings (AllSides)

• Best Tips for Spotting Fake News (Teen Vogue)

• In Brief: Misinformation (News Literacy Project)

Resources for Teachers

• Educator Resources (News Literacy Project)

• The Sift Archives

• News and Media Literacy Resource Center (Common Sense Media)

• News and Media Literacy Collection (PBS)

• Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything: Critical Evaluation

• Resources from the Center for an Informed Public (University of Washington)

• News Literacy Resources from Facing History

• Fake News Is An Information Literacy Problem - Not A Technology Problem (Forbes)

• How Savvy are Your Students: 7 Fake Websites to Really Test Their Evaluation Skills (EasyBib)

• The Real Problem with Fake News (Educational Leadership) (2017)

• Global Critical Media Literacy Project

Further Reading

• Sifting Through the Coronavirus Pandemic

• First Draft Training Resources

• Truth, Truthiness, Triangulation: A News Literacy Toolkit for a “Post-truth” World (School Library Journal)

• Countering Truth Decay (RAND)

• Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics: A Data Literacy Primer (EAVI)

• Beyond Fake News: 10 Types of Misleading News (EAVI)

• Fake News: MLS Resources

• Center for News Literacy (Stony Brook University School of Journalism)

• The Long and Brutal History of Fake News (Politico) (if you think fake news is new, think again)

• Fact-Checking Won’t Save Us From Fake News (FiveThirtyEight)

• Comic: Fake News Can Be Deadly. Here's How To Spot It (NPR)

Videos

• Crash Course Navigating Digital Information (with John Green!)

• Online Verification Skills (Mike Caulfield and Civix) (four videos)

• How to Choose Your News (TedEd)