Alaska Public Media

• “Governments should promote news literacy and strong professional journalism.
• The news industry must provide high-quality journalism to build public trust, and correct fake news and disinformation without legitimizing them.
• Technology companies should invest in tools that identify fake news, reduce financial incentives for those who profit from disinformation, and improve online accountability.
• Educational institutions should make informing people about news literacy a high priority.
• Finally, individuals should follow a diversity of news sources, and be skeptical of what they read and watch.”

–from How to combat fake news and disinformation, by Darrel; M. West, from The Brookings Institute, a nonprofit public policy organization that conducts research to solve problems facing society

Get used to this keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+T (or Command+T on a Mac). That creates a new browser tab in Chrome and Firefox. The reason: It enables you to ask questions and hopefully get some answers with a quick web search.

It’s an exercise called lateral reading. While reading an article, Step 1 is to open a browser tab. Step 2 is to ask yourself these questions:

• Who is behind the information?
• What is the evidence?
• What do other sources say?

–from How to deal with a crisis of disinformation, by Brian X. Chen, The New York Times, Oct. 14, 2020

Play the game

“Misinformation is a broader classification of false or inaccurate claims shared largely unwittingly and without the intention to deceive. Disinformation is a specific subset of misinformation created with deliberate intentions to deceive. Both have caused significant and real harm throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.”

–from Meeting COVID-19 Misinformation and Disinformation Head-on, from John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health