sarah brandt 01 reedit — Transcript

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1. 0:00hi my name is sarah brandt and i work at
2. 0:02newsguard where i head up our news
3. 0:04literacy programs
4. 0:05disinformation is prolific online
5. 0:09in all likelihood you join this teach
6. 0:11out because you're aware of this fact
7. 0:12and concerned about it but
8. 0:14in case you need further convincing
9. 0:16there has been plenty of research
10. 0:17conducted
11. 0:18studying this reality and just one
12. 0:21example
13. 0:22a 2019 study by the pew research center
14. 0:25found that 9 out of 10 americans had
15. 0:28come across made up news with some
16. 0:30regularity there are many explanations
17. 0:33for this fact for the fact that
18. 0:35misinformation
19. 0:36pervades so many topics and
20. 0:40has spread so wide online one of the
21. 0:43main ones
22. 0:44is the fact that online anyone can be a
23. 0:47source
24. 0:47anyone can be a publisher it's quite
25. 0:50simple to set up a twitter account and
26. 0:52start tweeting or set up a facebook
27. 0:53account and start posting
28. 0:55and with so many different sources of
29. 0:57news and information online
30. 1:00it can be very difficult to determine
31. 1:03which sources are generally trustworthy
32. 1:05and which ones are generally unreliable
33. 1:08let's think about two different websites
34. 1:10cancer.net and cancer.news
35. 1:14based solely on the names of those two
36. 1:16websites
37. 1:17can you tell who's behind each of them
38. 1:19and
39. 1:20whether they publish reliable
40. 1:22information
41. 1:24if you saw their articles in your
42. 1:25facebook feed would you take the time
43. 1:28to investigate each site and determine
44. 1:30whether it's credible
45. 1:32and even if you would do you think all
46. 1:35of your facebook friends would
47. 1:36the unfortunate reality is that many
48. 1:38people don't consider the accuracy of a
49. 1:40source before believing its content
50. 1:42or sharing it with their friends and
51. 1:45additionally many people lack the skills
52. 1:47to effectively assess the reliability of
53. 1:50information and sources
54. 1:52or in other words they lack media
55. 1:54literacy skills
56. 1:55media literacy is defined as
57. 1:58the ability to effectively evaluate and
58. 2:02engage with
59. 2:03media and information in all of its
60. 2:05diverse forms
61. 2:07be it a video on youtube an article in a
62. 2:10print magazine
63. 2:11a tweet or even a tick tock so
64. 2:13recognizing these problems
65. 2:15the proliferation of misinformation and
66. 2:18the lack of media literacy skills among
67. 2:20people of all ages
68. 2:22two veteran journalists stephen brill
69. 2:24and gordon krovitz got together
70. 2:27and they started a company called
71. 2:29newsguard
72. 2:30so newsguard what we do is we help
73. 2:31people avoid misinformation
74. 2:33and build media literacy skills by
75. 2:35giving them more context
76. 2:36for who's behind the sources that they
77. 2:38encounter online
78. 2:39and whether those sources are generally
79. 2:41trustworthy
80. 2:43here's how we do it we have a team of
81. 2:45trained journalists
82. 2:46who rate and review the reliability of
83. 2:49thousands of news and information
84. 2:50websites
85. 2:52unlike a fact-checking organization like
86. 2:54snopes or politifact
87. 2:56we don't write the accuracy of
88. 2:57individual claims or articles
89. 3:00but the general accuracy of websites as
90. 3:02a whole we assess
91. 3:04each website using nine basic apolitical
92. 3:08criteria
93. 3:09that evaluate the source's journalistic
94. 3:10practices
95. 3:12first we look at each site's credibility
96. 3:15asking questions like
97. 3:16does the site repeatedly publish false
98. 3:18content does it use deceptive headlines
99. 3:21then we look at its transparency does
100. 3:24the website tell you who owns it and how
101. 3:26it's financed
102. 3:27does it name its authors and provide
103. 3:29information about them
104. 3:32based on how the site fares on each of
105. 3:34those nine criteria
106. 3:35it receives an overall grain rating
107. 3:37indicating that it's generally reliable
108. 3:40or red rating indicating that it's
109. 3:42generally unreliable
110. 3:45these ratings are designed to help
111. 3:46people quickly understand
112. 3:48whether news or advice from a source can
113. 3:50be trusted
114. 3:51but we also give people additional
115. 3:53information in the form of
116. 3:55what we call a nutrition label
117. 3:58our nutrition labels are detailed
118. 4:00reviews providing more background about
119. 4:02each source and explaining exactly
120. 4:05why we rated the site the way that we
121. 4:07did
122. 4:08remember cancer.news and cancer.net from
123. 4:11earlier
124. 4:13cancer.news as it turns out is part of a
125. 4:17network of websites that promotes
126. 4:18conspiracy theories
127. 4:20including the repeatedly debugged claim
128. 4:22that vaccines
129. 4:23cause autism because of this practice
130. 4:27it fails all but one of our nine
131. 4:29criteria
132. 4:30and receives a red rating overall
133. 4:33cancer.net
134. 4:34on the other hand is run by a nonprofit
135. 4:37that represents oncologists
136. 4:38and other medical professionals it
137. 4:41receives a green rating overall
138. 4:42because it meets most of our nine
139. 4:44criteria
140. 4:46let's return to the concept i mentioned
141. 4:47earlier media literacy
142. 4:50at newsguard we help people build media
143. 4:52literacy skills in a few different ways
144. 4:55first our green and red icons prompt
145. 4:58people to
146. 5:00start thinking about source reliability
147. 5:03seeing a red icon prompts someone to
148. 5:05pause and
149. 5:06think before sharing or believing an
150. 5:09article
151. 5:10second our nine criteria can be used as
152. 5:13a framework
153. 5:14to help people understand which criteria
154. 5:17are important
155. 5:18to consider when evaluating whether a
156. 5:20source is trustworthy
157. 5:22and third our nutrition label reviews
158. 5:25help
159. 5:26people gain a richer and deeper
160. 5:28understanding
161. 5:29about who's behind all these sources of
162. 5:31information i'm seeing online
163. 5:34so through these methods and strategies
164. 5:37we help people build media literacy
165. 5:39skills so that
166. 5:41they can effectively assess information
167. 5:43online and spot misinformation
168. 5:46even without the help of news garden
169. 5:47even without access to our readings