Freelance Content Creator
Misinformation about coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading just like the disease. False “facts,” conspiracy theories, and bad advice pass from person-to-person with each repost. Let’s quarantine the worst misinformation websites and social media profiles.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Misinformation Roundup
How to Spot Misinformation
Understand the Incentive
How They Manipulate You
Verify from Multiple Sources
Ways to Help
Imagine that a journalist, with outside political views, decided to go undercover to expose corruption. That investigation turned into a series of articles in a political magazine, which found a sympathetic audience. Then the journalist turned those articles into a novel and pushed it through to publication.
Continue reading “Welcome to The Jungle” →As mass media has become more segregated, the news, in particular, has to address one challenging question. Do people actually care about accuracy?
Continue reading “We’re not sure if online news is accurate, but read & share it anyways.” →I must call Nana.
That was my first thought when the editor-in-chief at Lynchburg Living sent me a writing assignment focused on how seniors can manage their medications. I knew she could give me insights from her daily life.
Continue reading “Getting into the Baby Boomer Mindset” →The problem isn’t that we are believing fake news — it’s that we stopped believing in news. Since the middle of the 1900s, trust in the news has been slipping. It opened up a gap that financially-motivated false information generators happily filled.
Continue reading “The War of the Words” →Click and someone makes money. It doesn’t matter if you quickly leave the site — the event has been logged. Unfortunately, that’s the incentive for creating clickbait. While we’re waiting for the industry to catch up, you can lower the amount of junk news you consume by learning to spot them before you click.
Continue reading “The Psychology Behind Fake News & Click Bait Ads” →Let’s start on the other side of things. Facebook makes its money through advertisements. Advertisers, in a desire to reach their intended audiences, rely on Facebook to sell them space in front of the right types of people.
Continue reading “Have you looked up your Facebook classifications?” →The year was 1798 when John Adams signed The Alien and Sedition Acts. Trouble was brewing across the ocean as the French built up their navy and eyed our young country. In response, the Federalist Congress passed the act and Adams signed it.
Protests followed immediately.
Continue reading “When journalists talk about the threat our First Amendment rights, here’s what they mean.” →At this point, people are aware that fake news exists. Their problem with it is twofold. First, people aren’t sure how to identify fake news. Second, it has rattled their trust in any source of news or caused them to build extremely loyal affinities for select sources.
Continue reading “Have you shared a fake news story? Join the club.” →