Goal: To develop skills to determine the credibility of a news article about a scientific issue.
Steps:

1. Choose a written news piece (article, blog, etc.) on a specific scientific result or claim.
   Don’t pick a conspiracy theory–the goal here is to analyze how the article reports on a
   scientific claim.
2. Analyze the source using the checklist below. Detailed info on each criterion is on the
   separate handout.
3. Make a judgment as to the credibility of the source.
4. Complete the reflection question.
   Fill out the table with the information on your source.
   The scientific result/claim described
   in article:
   Headline of the article
   The URL for source
   The checklist and text is taken from the Information Sources Authenticity Checklist (ISAC),
   developed by Ulrike Lahaise, Georgia State University–Perimeter College
   All items in the checklist tables below are explained in detail following the table. While working
   through the checklist with any article, post, blog, vlog, etc., or claim, be aware of your own biases.
   The most common ones are: 1) Confirmation bias: the desire to believe or disbelieve in something
   distorts our interpretations and leads us to seek evidence to confirm our bias while we ignore
   evidence that disproves it; 2) Bias blind spot: the unawareness of our own bias which makes biased
   conclusions appear objective and impartial to us.
   As a rule of thumb: the greater your emotional reaction to an article, the more urgent the need to
   account for any underlying biases. Here are a couple of simple ways to minimize the effect of biases
   when getting information from any source: 1) look for a variety of sources reporting about the issue
   of interest that are independent from each other; 2) Compare your own interpretations with those of
   several sufficiently impartial experts.
   The checklist items are phrased as statements that are true for criteria applying to fake news/bad
   information. The more criteria that are true, the more likely that the source is fake or contains
   misleading information.
   1
   Author/Website Analysis
   Ratings: “X” if true; “-” if not, “N/A” if
   not applicable
   Your
   rating
   Evidence from article/your research
   1 Domain
   A Page is a personal website or
   blog
   B Page has an odd title and/or
   domain name
   C URL ends with “lo”, “.co”, or
   odd ending
   2 About Us
   A Bad Google/Wikipedia review
   B Info on authors is missing or
   bad
   C Author is a blogger
   D Contact email is personal
   (yahoo, gmail, etc.)
   E Site has a disclaimer/is a
   satirical website
   F Site has no “About us”,
   “Contact us”, author info
   3 Sources
   A In-article links are missing or
   sketchy
   B Quotes/facts/details are not
   authentic
   C No sources/only low-quality
   sources are included
   D Images are taken out of
   context and/or altered
   4 Writing
   A Contains ALL CAPS,
   spelling/grammar errors, etc.
   B Uses hyperbolic, emotionally
   charged language
   5 Layout
   A Bad visual layout
   B Bad navigational functionality
   Total # of X’s (out of 17)
   2
   Information/Claim Analysis
   Ratings: “X” if true; “-” if not, “N/A” if
   not applicable
   Your
   rating
   Evidence from source/your research
   1 Fact-checking
   A Site has low ratings on
   fact-checking sites
   B Info disagrees with
   official/expert sources
   C Sources are not
   cited/cannot be verified
   2 Cross-referencing A Info doesn’t agree with
   other news sources
   3 Timing
   A No date is given in
   article
   B Article is inaccurate b/c
   it is late-breaking
   4 Biases
   A Article has very
   positive/negative
   language
   B Article is one-sided, not
   neutral or objective
   C Article does not
   present alternative
   viewpoints/sources
   Total # of X’s (out of 9)
   3
   Now use the results of your analysis to evaluate the credibility of your source. Would you
   call it “fake news” or not? Why? There is no one “right” answer–what I’m looking for is
   the quality of your justification. Use specifics from the checklist in your discussion. Also
   consider the additional points discussed in class (GLAD, etc.).
   Evaluation of source:
   Now that you’ve completed this analysis, reflect on the experience. What was difficult
   about this assignment? What did you learn from it? How will it make you a wiser
   consumer of information in the future? Don’t just give broad, vague statements–be as
   specific as possible