This short video by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was created as a response to the 'misinformation epidemic' that requires a combination of information, media, and digital competencies, i.e. media and information literacy (MIL).
The Race Beat by
Meticulously researched and vividly rendered, The Race Beat is an unprecedented account of one of the most volatile periods in our nation’s history, as told by those who covered it.
Ladies' Pages by
Noliwe M. Rooks’s Ladies’ Pages sheds light on the most influential African American women’s magazines– Ringwood’s Afro-American Journal of Fashion, Half-Century Magazine for the Colored Homemaker, Tan Confessions, Essence, and O, the Oprah Magazine –and their little-known success in shaping the lives of black women.
The Light of Truth by
The Light of Truth is both an invaluable resource for study and a testament to Ida B. Wells’ long career as a civil rights activist.
Note: Not all of these resources claim a neutral bias. When in doubt, exercise critical thinking and check multiple sources.
AFP Fact Check is a department within Agence France-Presse (AFP), a multi-lingual, multicultural news agency whose mission is to provide accurate, balanced and impartial coverage of news wherever and whenever it happens in the world on a continuous basis.
The AllSides Fact Check Bias Chart™ reveals the media bias of top fact checkers, such as Snopes, Politifact, FactCheck.org and more. It is a companion to the AllSides Media Bias Chart™, which helps you to easily identify different perspectives in the news so you can get the full picture and think for yourself.
The Reporters’ Lab is a center for journalism research in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.
Annenberg Political Factcheck – a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. ‘Monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players.’
Lead Stories is a U.S. based fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
From the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly. Has a ‘Truth-O-Meter’ scorecard checking the attacks on the candidates (includes explanations). Also see their Punditfact page.
“Dedicated to checking the accuracy of claims by pundits, columnists, bloggers, political analysts, the hosts and guests of talk shows, and other members of the media.”
“Oldest and largest fact-checking site on the Internet”.
TruthOrFiction.com is a nonpartisan website where readers can quickly and easily get information about rumors, fake news, disinformation, misinformation, warnings, offers, requests for help, myths, hoaxes, virus warnings, and humorous or inspirational stories that are circulated by email.
An alliance between Maldita.es and Chequeado, world leaders in data verification in Spanish. The initiative seeks to use the learnings from both to create a Latino community of citizens and journalists to counteract disinformation in Spanish in the United States.
Web Archives
Archive.Today is a web archiving site, founded in 2012, that saves snapshots on demand, and has support for JavaScript-heavy sites such as Google Maps and progressive web apps such as Twitter. Archive.today records two snapshots: one replicates the original webpage including any functional live links; the other is a screenshot of the page.
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is a service that allows people to visit archived versions of Web sites. Visitors to the Wayback Machine can type in a URL, select a date range, and then begin surfing on an archived version of the Web. Imagine surfing circa 1999 and looking at all the Y2K hype, or revisiting an older version of your favorite Web site. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine can make all of this possible.
Reverse Image Search
TinEye is a reverse image search engine. It finds out where an image came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there is a higher resolution version. While most of the time people are looking for images on the internet sometimes we have an image and need to see where it came from or if there are other versions available. This is where TinEye comes in.
Video Verification Plugin (Chrome)
InVid is a plug-in toolkit designed to assist fact-checking through video verification. The tool provides users with contextual information on videos, reverse image searching, video metadata, video copyright information, along with other features to assist in verifying content.
Visualization Mapping of Information on Twitter
Hoaxy is a web-based tool that visualizes the spread of articles online. Hoaxy searches for claims and fact-checking going back to 2016. It tracks the sharing of links to stories from low-credibility sources and independent fact-checking organizations. It also calculates a bot score, which is a measure of the likely level of automation.
Bellingcat is a place to go to find the backstory to the latest news stories and analysis of tools for media verification. Their global collective of researchers, journalists and investigators compiles information on what is being reported on stories like the Beirut explosion, using Google Earth’s Three Dimensional View, and following missing millions in a money laundering case.
Checkology is a free e-learning platform with engaging, authoritative lessons on subjects like news media bias, misinformation, conspiratorial thinking and more. Learners develop the ability to identify credible information, seek out reliable sources and apply critical thinking skills to separate fact-based content from falsehoods.
Heard a rumor online and want to know more? Go to Emergent’s site. They will tell you the originating sources, if these sources are reliable, how much the story has been shared, and if the news story is true or false and why. It is a project of The Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University.
For a more in-depth study for an aspiring journalist, the Data Journalism website, sponsored by the European Journalism Centre and the Google News Initiative, has free courses in reporting best practices when using data and articles examining how newsrooms have used data to tell stories.
A free account provides access to track progress in the video courses. Some examples of courses are Countering Hate Speech, Doing Journalism with Data, and Verification: The Basics.
A project of the Freedom Forum, NewseumED provides free resources for learning media literacy skills, using historical sources to connect to current events. To access the content, you simply have to create a free account.
Their website includes lesson plans, digital graphics, Quizzes and themed collections, for all age levels. Classes and Training can be browsed by audience. This link will take you to a collection of their Maps, Polls, Quizzes and Themes – find out what your Freedom Type is, look at a Women’s Suffrage Movement Interactive Map and more.
"News literacy is the ability to determine the credibility of news and other information and to recognize the standards of fact-based journalism to know what to trust, share and act on. The News Literacy Project is a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America."
The Poynter Institute describes itself as “a nonprofit school for journalists and a publisher of original journalism.” Its News University offers courses on such things as Reporting in the Age of Social Justice and MediaWise Voter Project Fact-Checking Certificate. Many – but not all – are free due to sponsorship from different companies and organizations.