Who

The Who:

When encountering an article, website, or post that has a personal author, it is very important to investigate the credentials of the author:

Is the person reputable?

Knowledgeable?

An expert?

Someone you can trust?

It is all about trust.

Professional fact-checkers always check out the author first using a technique called lateral thinking.

For example, we trust Mom when she says not to touch a hot stove, but if she asks us to eat broccoli, we may not be so certain. Trusting Mom or NASA when they announce that Persistence landed on Mars is simple, other issues will require much more scrutiny.

Suppose we encounter a message, website, or article that makes us suspicious of a scam.

We decide to investigate this “who” further using fact-checker’s lateral thinking strategy.

We look up the idea and find an excellent lateral thinking tutorial and go to work. For a group project several minds working on the same problem just might help; although, we might end up in a friendly argument about trusting sources.