January 28th, 2021

Vetting information sources

In terms of news specifically, several skills need to be employed: looking through, up, across, and in:
• Look through: read the entire news story to determine time frame; coherence; writing tone, style and quality; authority of the author and the news outlet; supporting evidence; point of view and bias; fact versus opinion; presence and types of advertisements.
• Look up: trace the source of a news story (including images).
• Look across: compare different versions of the same news (e.g., different sources with different perspectives).
• Look in: identify one’s own biases, belief system, and emotional “triggers.”
• Use fact-checking tools.
This is my model, which can be used even with children, as they act out each point (arms pointed out, arms up, arms spread, arms pointed in)

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Hi Lesley:

Thanks for joining our conversation and laying out that process -- and for leaving me with the sweet image of children pointing their arms out, up, in and spread.

Have you got thoughts about how to convince adults to think so deeply about the content they consume?

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