If there is break

There are three major web searchable archives in the U.S.: Google’s Historical Newspapers: news.google.com/newspapers Newspapers.com: newspapers.com Newsbank’s Newspaper Archive: newspaperarchive.com

Promoted tweets aren’t necessarily untrue, but they should be treated the way one would treat a commercial.

To avoid confirmation bias in searches: Avoid asking questions that imply a certain answer. If I ask “Did the Holocaust happen?,” for example, I am implying that it is likely that the Holocaust was faked. If you want information on the Holocaust, sometimes it’s better just to start with a simple noun search, e.g. “Holocaust,” and read summaries that show how we know what happened. Avoid using terms that imply a certain answer. As an example, if you query “Women 72 cents on the dollar” you’ll likely get articles that tell you women make 72 cents on the dollar. But is you search for “Women 80 cents on the dollar” you’ll get articles that say women make 80 cents on the dollar. Searching for general articles on the “wage gap”  might be a better choice. Avoid culturally loaded terms. As an example, the term “black-on-white crime” is term used by white supremacist groups, but is not a term generally used by sociologists. As such, if you put that term into the Google search bar, you are going to get some sites that will carry the perspective of white supremacist sites, and be lousy sources of serious sociological analysis. Plan to reformulate. Think carefully about what constitutes an authoritative source before you search. Once you search you’ll find you have an irrepressible urge to click into the top results. If you can, think of what sorts of sources and information you would like to see in the results before you search. If you don’t see those in the results, fight the impulse to click on forward, and reformulate your search. Scan results for better terms. Maybe your first question about whether the holocaust happened turned up a lousy result set in general but did pop up a Wikipedia article on Holocaust denialism. Use that term to make a better search for what you actually want to know.

Domain Dossier

the Google panel (“one true answer”)

Google‘s panels, however, are oblivious to this kind of complexity and present a simple numerical answer where no simple answer actually exists.

 Internet Archive‘s TV News Archive

a practice called astroturfing

Quote Investigator).

The Wayback Machine doesn’t archive every page, but they do archive an awful lot of them. Whether a page is archived will often depend on if a page was heavily linked to in the past, or if it was published by a site that the Wayback Machine tracks. In the case of the White House, of course, both these things are true and we have a near perfect history of the site.

newspapers of record

it is certainly the case that high profile failings such as these have eroded faith in the press more generally, and, for some, created the impression that there really is no difference between the New York Times, the Springfield Herald, and your neighbor’s political Facebook page.

Again, we cannot stress enough: you should read things by people with political agendas. It’s an important part of your news diet.

Bias is about how people see things; agenda is about what the news source is set up to do.

there is a strong consensus that alcohol consumption predicts cancer.

As such, studies that are consistent with previous research are often more trustworthy than those that have surprising or unexpected results. This runs counter to the narrative promoted by the press: “news,” after all, favors what is new and different.

At the bottom of each result we see how many times each article he is associated with is cited.

We take as our premise that information is abundant and time is scarce. As such, it’s better to err on the side of moving onto the next article than to invest time in an article that displays warning signs regarding either expertise or accuracy.

baltimoregazette.com -site:baltimoregazette.com

If a peer-reviewed journal has a large following of experts, that provides even more eyes on the article, and more chances to spot flaws.

the trustworthy publications are the ones saying things that are correct, and we define “correct” as what we believe to be true. A moment’s reflection will show the flaw in this way of thinking.

They also look at pages linking to the site, not just pages coming from it.

in a sea of spin and fakery

So we have questions.

So that’s it. It’s part of a parking revenge meme that dates back at least four years, and was popularized by Reddit. This particular one was shot by Matthew Mills in Biddeford, Maine, who was not the one who circled the carts. And it became viral through the reshare provided by a local Maine news station.

This is good internet citizenship. Articles on the web that repurpose other information or artifacts should state their sources, and, if appropriate, link to them. This matters to creators, because they deserve credit for their work. But it also matters to readers who need to check the credibility of the original sources.

the New York Times only pays the Associated Press to show them on the site for a few weeks.

After you’ve ranked the websites, answer these questions: Did the ranking surprise you at all? What do you think the quantity of sponsored content indicates about a website? How does this change your perspective on these websites’ reliability? Why would some websites have more sponsored content than others?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/10/politics/russia-dossier-update/index.html

It’s what we call “reporting on reporting.” There’s no point in evaluating the Blaze’s page.

If you can find a claim expressed in a Wikipedia article, you can almost always follow the footnote on the claim to a reliable source.

Wikipedia is broadly misunderstood by faculty and students alike. While Wikipedia must be approached with caution, especially with articles that are covering contentious subjects or evolving events, it is often the best source to get a consensus viewpoint on a subject. Because the Wikipedia community has strict rules about sourcing facts to reliable sources, and because authors must adopt a neutral point of view, its articles are often the best available introduction to a subject on the web.

Politifact Factcheck.org Washington Post Fact Checker Snopes Truth be Told NPR Fact-Check Lie Detector (Univision, Spanish language) Hoax Slayer

try these moves in sequence

Much web literacy I’ve seen either asks students to look at web pages and think about them, or teaches them to publish and produce things on the web.