Heads UP: This quarter ends in two weeks. On the Sunday, November 8, the grades will close for this class, as time is needed to finish grading work. Plan accordingly. Do you need some assistance?. There will office hours the next two Sundays and this Wednesday. Check your grades. Let me know, if I have missed something. COMMUNICATE. Send me an e-mail.
1. Last week, The Post reported that Paul Horner, “the 38-year-old impresario of a Facebook fake-news empire,” believes he turned the election in favor of Donald Trump. For many, the claim signals an alarming turn into uncharted political territory. But fake news is part of American history. In fact, it goes back to the founding of the republic.
2. In 1769, John Adams gleefully wrote in his diary about spending the evening occupied with “a curious employment. Cooking up Paragraphs, Articles, Occurrences etc. — working the political Engine!” Adams, along with his cousin Sam and a handful of other Boston patriots, were planting false and exaggerated stories meant to undermine royal authority in Massachusetts.
3. Several other leaders of the American Revolution likewise attempted to manage public opinion by fabricating stories that looked like the real thing. William Livingston, then governor of New Jersey, secretly crafted lengthy pieces that newspaper publishers featured. One, titled “The Impartial Chronicle,” was anything but, claiming that the king was sending tens of thousands of foreign soldiers to kill Americans.
4. But the most important was crafted in 1782 at a makeshift printing press in a Paris suburb. Benjamin Franklin, taking time out from his duties as American ambassador to France, concocted an entirely fake issue of a real Boston newspaper, the Independent Chronicle. In it, Franklin fabricated a story allegedly from the New York frontier .
5. The story was gruesome: American forces had discovered bags containing more than 700 “SCALPS from our unhappy Country-folks.” There were bags of boys’, girls’, soldiers and even infants’ scalps, all allegedly taken by Indians in league with King George. There was also a note written to the tyrant king hoping he would receive these presents and “be refreshed.”
6. None of this was true, of course, but it struck a frightful chord. To drive the point home, Franklin composed a fake letter from a real person, naval hero John Paul Jones, that ventriloquized almost verbatim the Declaration of Independence, including the accusation toward the end of that document suggesting the colonies must declare iFranklin sent copies of his fake newspaper to colleagues insisting, “the substance is truth.” Sure enough, the story appeared in real papers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island. What did those readers believe? Did they know they were being manipulated?
7. Franklin wrote a friend about the power of what he had just done. “By the press we can speak to nations,” he wrote with pride. With the power of the newspaper, politicians could not only “strike while the iron is hot,” but also stoke those fires by “continual striking,” Franklin wrote with a wink.ndependence because the king has “engage[d] savages to murder . . . defenseless farmers, women, and children.”
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Of note: Americans of all ages, from digitally savvy tweens to high-IQ academics, fail to ask important questions about content they encounter on a browser, adding to research on our online gullibility. Other studies have shown that people retweet links without clicking on them and rely too much on search engines. A 2016 Pew poll found that nearly a quarter of Americans said they had shared a made-up news story. On average, people are inclined to believe false news at least 20% of the time. “We are all driving cars, but none of us have licenses,” says Professor Wineburg of MIT.
Know
1. Develop a Critical Mindset
One of the main reasons fake news is such a big issue is that it is often believable, so it's easy to get caught out. Much fake news is also written to create "shock value," that is, a strong instinctive reaction such as fear or anger.
This means it's essential that you keep your emotional response to such stories in check. Instead, approach what you see and hear rationally and critically.
Ask yourself, "Why has this story been written? Is it to persuade me of a certain viewpoint? Is it selling me a particular product? Or is it trying to get me to click through to another website? Am I being triggered?"
2. Check the Source
If you come across a story from a source that you've never heard of before, do some digging!
Check the web address for the page you're reading. Spelling errors in company names, or strange-sounding extensions like ".infonet" and ".offer," rather than ".com" or ".co.uk," may mean that the source is suspect.
Trusted online fact-checking sites like Snopes can help you to verify stories that sound too good to be true.
3. See Who Else Is Reporting the Story
Has anyone else picked up on the story? What do other sources say about it?
Avoid leaping to the conclusion that all main stream media (MSM) output is fake. This can be as unwise as following every rumor or conspiracy theory.
Professional global news agencies such as Reuters, CNN and the BBC have rigorous editorial guidelines and extensive networks of highly trained reporters, so are a good place to start. But no one is unbiased, and anyone can make a mistake, so keep looking.
5. Don't Take Images at Face Value
Modern editing software has made it easy for people to create fake images that look real. In fact, research shows that only half of us can tell when images are fake. However, there are some warning signs you can look out for. Strange shadows on the image, for example, or jagged edges around a figure.
Images can also be 100 percent accurate but used in the wrong context. For example, photos of litter covering a beach could be from a different beach or from 10 years ago, not the recent alleged event.
You can use tools such as Google Reverse Image Search to check where an image originated and whether it has been altered.
6. Check That it "Sounds Right"
Finally, use your common sense! Bear in mind that fake news is designed to "feed" your biases, hopes or fears.
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Can you spot the fake news?
Copy and paste the following into a google doc. Complete and share with me from the drop down menu. Due by the end of class tomorrow. I would rather you have nothing to do over the weekend.
Assignment: Below you will find 10 news stories. For each identify if the story is real or fake and explain the reasoning for your choice.
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