Due to large corporations such as Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and even well-known gossip magazines etc., the notion of fake news has been circling around. All of these listed above have one thing in common and that is they’re credibility for real news. These days youth are drawn in by the bigger news i.e, headlines of their favourite celebrities and turning to social media for there scope of the “news”. This gives newspapers a decline of readers on their front because people can’t seem to understand the difference between real and fake. Some steps to help readers build back their trust with the publications are to firstly to give credit to the publisher of the article, the use of primary sources rather then secondary, and lastly consistency between fellow news outlets.
While looking at a newspaper or any published work for that matter you should be searching for the publisher’s name written on the piece of work. The reason why looking for the publisher’s name is crucial is because real news gives credit to one source I.e the person whose writing it. In a fake news report, you’ll tend to see that there is no credibility being acknowledged. Finding the publisher isn’t all that’s needs to be done, going above and beyond to dig deeper on the person that your relying on to give you the truth (written by a journalist with the intent to inform) (TEDEd). By doing this it will strengthen your trust in what your reading, and overall help you rely on the source more often in the futur. Usually the name of the person who wrote it would be at the top, that would be called the byline.
When reading an article about breaking news or factual text majority of the people want to hear the stuff first hand, this would include multiple sources called a primary source, which indicate claims coming straight from the company or from the cause of the problem or the issue being addressed itself. For example, covering a report about a medical outbreak in a country and asking the doctors for their take on the situation rather than the civilians. What people don’t want to be reading is a whole bunch of facts with no grounds or actual context, these would include false urls and/or “alternative facts” (TEDEd) this type of background information designates secondary sources. For instance, writing an article about the nullification about the Obama care in the US and asking the general public about why it’s being terminated instead of the person who’s putting that campaign into motion, i.e. President Donald Trump. Also, its important to read the comment section when you are trying to figure out whether the facts being listed are real. “Headlines often will be written in exaggerated language with the intention of being misleading and then attached to stories that are about a completely different topic or just not true” (npr.org), It would be strongly recommended to scroll down and skim some of the readers answers and commentary when taking in the reading. Chances are that the responses people are giving will help you get a sense of how much is actually genuine.
Lastly when looking at a piece of work to know whether its reliable of not you should always try to find other news source to see if they have the same content as the one you’re reading. If another well known outlet such as the New York Times, CNN, NBC haven’t written out your topic or “breaking news” or even mentioned it in any way then chances are that your on the verge of reading fake news. You should always check the sources between other sources. You should always moniter what your reading incase youre to see whether or not its been keeping up its credibility of being real news. Not by checking up once or twice, more like every time it releases and article to the public you should be asking yourself questions on whether or not your being duped. By searching up other news papers or even social media to see if theyre adding to whats already been said or if its been made up totally. For example if CNN writes about a topic and theyre the only news covering it then there’s a possibility that its false news.
With the impression of fake news swarming around, the majority of people these days don’t feel comfortable in relying on social media or news outlets to give them their news. Three ways to catch yourself in being tricked into believing in it is to find the name of the publisher and search their history, always try to find primary sources rather than secondary sources and it doesn’t hurt to question what you read and try to match your reading with another publication. “We all have our likes and our dislikes. But… when we’re doing news – when we’re doing the front-page news, not the back page, not the op-ed pages, but when we’re doing the daily news, covering politics – it is our duty to be sure that we do not permit our prejudices to show. That is simply basic journalism.” – Walter Cronkite