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News source evaluation: Fact Checking Tools

Real news, sloppy news, biased news, and just plain fake news: What are the issues? And how do you tell the difference?

Fact Checking Sites

Pants on Fire meter from Politifact

These are a few well-known websites that are dedicated to checking the accuracy of news stories, claims of politicians and/or rumors and urban legends.  Try searching for "media watchdog" or "political watchdog" in Google to see more options.

Evaluation tools

Videos about evaluating sources

What do the People Say?

"People say" and "Everybody thinks" are expressions sometimes used to spread information not backed by fact. Reliable survey data can be found in these sources.

Other Library Guides about Fake News

Mary Ann's FIB test

CRAAP Test

The CRAAP Test is a list of questions (developed at Meriam Library at California State University, Chico) to help you analyze the validity of a source.  Here is a short list of things to look for to see if your information source passes the CRAAP test:

CRAAP Test graphic

Here's the original:

News Infographics

News Bias infographics summarize an analysis of the content of various news sources. While they use a formula or rubric to come up with their analysis, they are still approximations and not necessarily applicable to every item in the news source or other formats (e.g. CNN.com vs. CNN cable news).
Most people tend to think their favorite sources are moderate and reliable. How about yours?

Dzwonkowski News Bias Infographic (2016)

Dzwonkowski News Bias chart from 2016
By Luke Dzwonkowski. 2016. Creative Commons Licensed, Used with Permission.