Why should you care about whether or not your news is real or fake?
One of the ways in which a news source demonstrates its authenticity and responsibility to its readers is through a publicly accessible code of ethics or standards. A sample of various codes, mission statements and ethics handbooks are listed below.
Another way to evaluate websites is to use a site such as register.com or Go.Daddy to do a "whois" search for the site. This will show you information about who "owns" the domain.
You can also use Google to see what pages link to a specific address. To do this, simply type link:followed by the website address (with no spaces after the colon).
Did your mother call you to tell you about that new miracle cure for Alzheimer's disease? Did your Facebook feed pop up with an article on a factory farm of pigs intended for human transplant harvesting? Did one of your friends breathlessly tell you that there's a new spider that's going to kill us all? You might have heard any or all of these stories, but there's one thread connecting all of them: they're not true.
The ability to tell accurate news from fake news is an important skill that you'll use for the rest of your life. This guide will give you valuable insight in telling fact from fiction online.
