MEDIA TOOLS
How to spot fake news
Don’t fall victim to fake news. There are tools you can use to help sort fact from fiction
US president Donald Trump may have made "fake news" an everyday utterance, but it is not new. In some form or another, competing narratives and outright fakery have played a part in news media since its birth. What changed the game, though, is the role of the Internet and social media. The ease with which we can share content means false or slanted information can travel around the world with a click. And the fakers are becoming more sophisticated as the financial incentive grows. Many fake news sites profit directly through advertising served on their sites — so scandalous angles and click-bait headlines serve the direct purpose of generating income. Research — such as independent studies from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, and Pew Research Center — suggests that as many as half of all adults get their news directly from their Facebook feeds, and many do not critically consider the source of those posts. Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) ...
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