Research Tips: Accuracy and Reliability

• Look for unusual URLs or site names, including those that end with "lo" or ".com.co" -- these are often trying to appear like legitimate news sites, but they aren't.
• Look for signs of low quality, such as words in all caps, headlines with glaring grammatical errors, bold claims with no sources, and sensationalist images (women in bikinis are popular clickbait on fake news sites). These are clues that you should be skeptical of the source.
• Check a site's "About Us" section. Find out who supports the site or who is associated with it. If this information doesn't exist -- and if the site requires that you register before you can learn anything about its backers -- you have to wonder why they aren't being transparent.
• Check Snopes, Wikipedia, and Google before trusting or sharing news that seems too good (or bad) to be true.
• Consider whether other credible, mainstream news outlets are reporting the same news. If they're not, it doesn't mean it's not true, but it does mean you should dig deeper.
• Check your emotions. Clickbait and fake news strive for extreme reactions. If the news you're reading makes you really angry or super smug, it could be a sign that you're being played. Check multiple sources before trusting.

SOME REPUTABLE FACT-CHECKING ORGANISATIONS

The following organisations are generally regarded as reputable fact-checking organisations focused on U.S. national news:

• Politifact
• Factcheck.org
• Washington Post Fact Checker
• Snopes
• Truth be Told
• NPR Fact-Check
• Lie Detector (Univision, Spanish language)
• Hoax Slayer

Respected specialty sites cover niche areas such as climate or celebrities. Here’s a few examples:

• Climate Feedback
• SciCheck
• Quote Investigator

There are many fact-checking sites outside the U.S. Here is a small sample.

• FactsCan (Canada)
• TrudeauMetre (Canada)
• El Polígrafo (Mexico)
• The Hound (Mexico)
• Guardian Reality Check (UK)
• BBC Reality Check (UK)
• Channel 4 Fact Check
• Full Fact (UK)

This web book Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers is a great resource, designed to help students get to the bottom and find the truth about what they read online and what they view. It is especially good at teaching you how to work out the origin of photos and stories that go 'viral', especially the ones on Social Media.

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