How to Evaluate Sources
Lesson 9:2
Lesson 9:2
The need to evaluate the sources used in a news story has become more and more important as a job for the news consumer as the 24 hour news cycle and the speed at which unfounded rumors can be spread online have made it much more difficult for the traditional "gatekeepers" of news and information to keep up. When evaluating sources, we use these questions to frame the discussion:
Who is this source?
How would this person know about this?
Is anyone else telling the same story?
Is this person providing evidence or just making assertions?
Does this source have a dog in the fight? / Are they affected by the story in some sort of way?
For the purposes of this course, we use the acronym IMVA/IN to methodically evaluate sources who show up in news stories.
Independent sources are better than self-interested sources
Multiple sources are better than single sources
Sources who Verify with evidence are better than sources who assert
Authoritative / Informed sources are better than uninformed sources
Named sources are better than unnamed sources
These are straightforward ideas. Let’s see what happens out in the messy real world.