Consuming Media Responsibly: A Guide to Getting your Information:

Responsible Media Usage:

It is the active initiative to be aware of the source and content of media you’re consuming and take conscious steps to ensure that your intake and interaction with media is factual, safe, and responsible.

News Media:

The news spectrum today is filled with fake and misleading articles created to influence public opinion and political votes. Since this influence is strong and widespread, it is important to understand your responsibility to differentiate between real and fake news.

This is most important to be aware when it comes to consuming media that identifies with your own bias. Just because an article is supporting the ideas you hold, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily factual.

Ways to Identify Fake News:

• Read the news with a rational critical eye - Ask important questions questioning the source and their bias as you read the news

• Ensure that the source is reliable - if you are consuming media from a source that is known to be biased, try to focus on the facts they provide and question their stances.

• News from a reputed and established news company is often much more likely to be true.

• Fact-check. Fact-check. Fact-check.

• Headlines are intentionally written in misleading ways - read beyond them and go into the entire article rather than stopped at the headline.

• If the article is from an unknown site and has multiple grammatical errors in it, it is likely to be fake.

• Check to see if at least 3-4 other major news sites are reporting the same news or not.

• Analyze the evidence yourself as well.

• Lastly, remember that fake news doesn’t only have to be not factual. It can be written in misleading ways that are open to misinterpretation as well or include both true and false components.

Social Media:

Since we now don’t only rely on professional news media to get our everyday news, being aware of the dangers of social media news is also important. Providers of news on Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, or other platforms do not have the same pressure to be factual in their reporting, and should be consumed even more critically.

• Never rely only on a post or tweet for information on a certain topic. Always check for news companies picking up the issue and read those articles as well. It is only in rare cases that no media house at all writes on these stories.

• Go through the comment section - Sometimes even just reading through the comments can offer you supporting or opposing evidence and points of view.

• Check the source and its history with misinformation and bias.

• Look for signs that the information is untrue - in cases of WhatsApp forwards and Instagram posts, it is often easy to pick out blatant fake news. Stay critical and questioning while reading.

• It is of utmost importance to fact check, especially in cases of social media.

• Ask your friends and family what they think of the news, but do so carefully.

Since we are all heavy media consumers and interact with it almost daily, we must understand our responsibility to do so safely and correctly. Avoid sharing or forwarding any news unless you are sure of its truthfulness. Be aware, careful, and most importantly, willing to identify and reject fake news.