This guide describes briefly the essential tactics for navigating online news and information without falling prey to misinformation (false or misleading information spread unintentionally) or disinformation (false or misleading information spread intentionally).
The following video from PBS's NOVA program provides a funny example of how misinformation can spread so easily.
The content of this guide is drawn from and built on the excellent work of a range of people and organizations focused on the problems of mis/disinformation, fakes news, propaganda, and other forms of coercive information, as well as others who are focused on developing information and media literacies among K-12 and higher education students.
The Highline College Library staff advocates for the use of the CCOW rubric for information evaluation, which we borrowed from Gonzaga University librarian Anthony Tardiff. The present guide offers tactics for navigating online news and information, but for a more rigorous set of prompts for evaluating information sources for college-level research, we recommend you use the CCOW rubric.
The Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) developed the Civic Online Reasoning (COR) curriculum to teach tactics for fact-checking and information evaluation.
Mike Caulfield, research scientist at the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington, developed the SIFT method of fact-checking and information evaluation based on the work of the Stanford History Education Group and other research in the field of information and media literacy.
John Green, co-host with his brother Hank Green of the Crash Course series of educational videos, produced Crash Course: Navigating Digital Information, in partnership with MediaWise, The Poynter Institute, and The Stanford History Education Group. The course offers a curriculum of hands-on skills to help you evaluate the information you read online.