Thinking back to the days of my parents sitting and enjoying the
newspaper on a warm summer evening brings happy feelings of a simpler time. A
time when the news that was delivered to our mailbox everyday was reliable and
the stories on the evening news were true.
Did anyone ever worry back then about the
validity of the news? I think the only threat those pages posed was the
possibility of blackening our fingers with ink.
Fast forward to present day. We now live in the digital era, where
everyone is a potential "journalist" with the ability to post news
real or fake. The question is though, how do we spot the difference? How can
something that appears professional and true be fake? How do we know that what
may seem fake is actually real?
It is a confusing time and often hard to navigate the waters
of truth and fiction. The definition of fake news was discussed in the New York Times. It was defined raw
opinion being passed off as news, which causes confusion and doubt among
readers.
The best way to spot the fake is to go through the tried and true
steps of who, what, when, and why. Piktochart offers a useful cheat sheet of sorts to help
spot fake news using these tactics. It gives you a quick run down of tools to
use to help scrutinize the publication and test its authenticity.
The truth is out there. We just have to know how to find it and
how to spot the fakes.
Rachael,
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion you blog is very successful. I noticed that it is very organized and easy to navigate. I liked that you used pictures and bolded your references. Thinking back, I also remember the news paper being delivered everyday and being a reliable source of information. We do not get the newspaper at my house anymore since everything is online. However, I do question if the news today puts fake information or information that has not been confirmed yet on their webpage or on television just to gain views and be the most popular page. A lot of times, the news will jump to post stories and later change what they said. I have even seen on CHCH the Hamilton news that they talk a lot about all the bad things happening and not so much the good. I will defiantly use Piktochart to spot the fake news from now on.
Thank you,
Natalie L
Hi Rachel!
ReplyDeleteI would consider your blog to be successful as the design is well rounded. I think the background of shelves of books is a good idea for your topic because it represents the searching you need to do to figure out if news is fake or real. However, if may suggest changing the font of your title to something different than what you write in would help to draw the reader straight to what your talking about. Or if you would like to keep the font, I would suggest changing the background colour to make it pop.
As for the use of your image and the use of hyperlinks, it really adds to your blog because the image allows the reader to see a physical representation of analytical skills needed for discovering the fake. The hyperlinks enable your readers to find out more about what your talking about. I believe that by your use of hyperlinks allows you to keep your information short, sweet and straight to the point instead of making your audience drown in words and force them to take in a lot of information.
In reference to your post, I really enjoyed the way you begun your blog with a memory because it creates a character for yourself and presents the audience with a glimpse of who you are.
Furthermore, your idea of having this as a first post is great because you are immediately telling your reader off the bat that fake news exists and how they can find it.
Moreover, with this post, I am drawn to think about what it actually fake in the news and am wondering what I have possibly read that is not real.
Thanks for the tip!
Kayleigh Mascarenhas
Hello Rachel!
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion your blog is very successful. I liked the search feature for easy navigation, and that you broke down the information into short paragraphs, which made it easier to follow instead of getting lost in a wall of text, like I have found common on many web pages. I also liked your use of images to add visual interest to the post. I think that your use of hyperlinks was very smart, as it allows the reader to gain more background information on what you were referring to if they needed to.
Thank you for providing us with the Piktochart reference, as I am sure that information on the cheat sheet will come in handy for when we are trying to distinguish what is truly real and accurate news. This will be especially helpful for students like ourselves, as we are often required to find reliable sources for essays, which can be a challenge if we don’t know what to look for in a reliable source.
It’s unfortunate that nowadays many people tend to easily believe a majority of what they read on the internet without taking the time to validate the source. This is especially common with the millennial population as we often gain access to the internet before we are even taught how to critically think and analyze the information.
Can’t wait to read the next post!
Lauren S
The goal of the perpetrators of fake news, I think, is mainly to make people question all news. Not in the good way, like questioning news to get a more correct answer, but rather to make people unsure of what is real or not, and so they believe nothing.
ReplyDeleteIt sorta feels like a dystopian future novel, where everything is as the government says it is, except in this case nothing is as anyone says it is, especially the government.
There are of course the people who just post opinions which are fake news, but I think the main problem are those who are trying to create fake news, rather than it just being the end product by chance.
Hello Rachael,
ReplyDeleteI strongly feel that everything that comes out of Trump's mouth is fake; I do not trust him. He has been caught in many scandals and is continuing to put many lives at risk. He has no respect for woman, and can not be trusted when it comes to making smart decisions that will benefit the country long-term. He should not be president; he is not a leader or a positive role model for our generation.
Thank you,
Ioana
Great start with this blog, Rachel! One avenue you might think of going down if comparing current journalism to the past would be slant, political perspective, economic interests (such as advertising and media ownership), which all existed in print news, but have shifted in the digital media landscape. Interested to see where you take this!
ReplyDeleteHello Rachael,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog post as it was very organized and easy to navigate. I truly feel that there was a time period where we believed everything that we read while reading the newspaper. However, nowadays things have turned digital and there is a wider gap for fake news to be leaked. I feel that we as a society jump to conclusions without truly thinking of the situation; which leads us to believe that all news is real and none of it is fake. Thinking, “If it wasn’t real why would they have it published”? I know I was guilty of having that type of mindset when searching on the internet, as I felt that people would be wasting their money and time by reading fake news.
Thank you,
Ioana