Misinformation, Disinformation, and Bias

Headlines

• The headline is the first thing you see of an article and is designed to capture your attention, so it should convey maximum information in as little space as possible. However, some headlines rely on a shock factor or emotional angle to get you to read the rest of the article, while others will imply how you should feel about the reported event

Photos, captions, and camera angles

• Someone's expression and background can heavily impact your impression of them. Pictures with unflattering angles and awkward expressions can be used to make fun of someone or imply their incompetence, while composed and professionally edited photos can be used to present someone as confident and qualified. The choice of background also plays a role - pictures of a crowded event imply that it was popular, while a relatively quiet area of the same event can be used to imply that few people attended. 

Use of names, nicknames, and titles

• The choice of descriptors can affect how the audience feels about a person, event, or plan. For example, "felon", "business owner", "grandfather", "criminal", "wealthy", "cruel", "dog lover", "liar", and "elderly" can all refer to the same person, but the choice of which one to use affects how you perceive them. 

Selection or omission of information

• This may appear in the details of a specific story, or in what stories are published in the first place. If an author is reporting on types of 911 calls, but only includes calls that require police, they are omitting all information about 911 calls that only require medical care or the fire department. This might lead to the impression that crime is more prevalent that medical crises or fires, as police only sometimes show up alongside ambulances or fire engines. 

Placement

• Articles placed on the front page (or homepage) of a newspaper or news website are the articles the publisher wants you to see the most. Articles that aren't prominent when browsing the news may be less important - or the publisher may be trying to cover the story up

Choice of words

• This is the easiest to spot, and what people typically think of when it comes to bias. It involves using (often unnecessary) descriptive words to influence how you think about the content. Biased words can convey support, adversity, suspicion, approval, disapproval, excitement, disappointment, surprise, disgust, and more. It is important to note that articles on crime that use "alleged" or "suspected" are not meant to cast doubt, but to reflect that it has not yet been proven in court that the suspect committed the crime. 

Choice of author and sources

• A long list of cited sources is generally a good sign when it comes to author credibility. However, if the author is trying to prove a point or argue for one specific side of an issue, they may only cite sources that agree with their stance. Consulted sources should be from a variety of perspectives and show all sides of an issue. 

Data manipulation

• Data can be misrepresented even if the statements are technically true. The statement "hundreds affected by vaccine side effects" may be true, but that could be 350 people out of 1,000,000 vaccinated people - a mere 0.03%. A statement that more clearly evaluates the risk associated with the vaccine would be "3 out of every 10,000 people experience side effects following vaccination". The first statement is framed to imply that the vaccine is dangerous, or that there's an epidemic of side effects, while the second puts the number into context and gives the reader an accurate depiction of the chance they will experience a side effect. 

Algorithms

• Algorithms govern what content is reccommended to you on social media sites, YouTube, AI chatbots, and search engines. The more time you spend looking at a single post, video, or website, the more likely the algorithm is to suggest similar posts, videos, and websites. The code that controls the algorithm may be biased, or the data used to train the algorithm may have been biased. This can lead to an echo chamber and confirmation bias, where you are only fed information that agrees with content you've already seen. 

Stop and reflect

This step reminds us to pause whenever we find ourselves caught up in an article or overwhelmed with source-checking tasks. When you first open an article or news story, think about where the information is coming from before you dive into it (especially if the tile is particularly clickbait-y). Do you know the website? What's their reputation?

Secondly, don't get overwhelmed with fact-checking every piece of information you read. While it is important to know where your information is coming from, you don't need to do a deep dive on every article. If you're just catching up on current events, reposting a story, or exploring an interesting topic, you probably only need to verify the publication is reputable. If you're looking to do deep research or write a paper, it's a good idea to locate multiple sources that confirm key information.

Investigate the source

This step has us looking at what the source actually is - who wrote it and who published it. The idea is that you want to know the background and goal of the source before you read it. An article about meat consumption in America written by the USDA may have very different goals than an article about meat consumption written by PETA. That doesn't mean one article is necessarily better or more factual than the other, but knowing the angle the author is coming from can help you decide whether the article is significant, trustworthy, and worth reading.

Find better coverage

This step is about finding other sources on the same topic. If you see a particularly outlandish or surprising claim, do a general search for the same information. For example, if you see an article claiming that having a pet cat is now illegal, you can search the web for "pet cat illegal" and see if any other articles pop up with the same claim, or if something entirely different happened and the original author was dramatizing. This step isn't so much about getting to the source of a claim - moreso about determining expert consensus on the topic. If 9/10 articles say that having a pet tiger is illegal, and the tenth article says that having any pet cat is illegal, you can probably surmise that the tenth article is exaggerating. 

Trace claims back to the original context

Here is where you will investigate the original sources of information. Much of media has been stripped of its original context. It is extremely easy for people to omit important details or clip parts of a video to make it appear as if someone said or did something completely different. 

For example, say you see a video circulating of a popular celebrity yelling at an innocent fan that wants to take a picture with them. From that video, you might think that the celebrity is rude and aggressive in general. However, in looking for the original source of the video, you find that the clip you saw cut out the scene right beforehand where the fan shoved the celebrity's child out of the way in order to get closer to the celebrity. That missing context makes all the difference in interpreting the video - the perspective shifts from an aggressive celebrity that hates their fans to a parent protecting their child.