Finding Credible News: News Literacy

This vocabulary list comes from  School Library Journal, "Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world,"

confirmation bias: the tendency to believe information is credible if it conforms to the reader’s/viewer’s existing belief system, or not credible if it does not conform.

content farm or content mill: a company that employs a staff of freelance writers to create content designed to satisfy search engine retrieval algorithms with the goal of attracting views and advertising revenue.

echo chamber:  an information environment in which people are surrounded by information that reinforces their already existing viewpoints, and varied or competing ideas are unlikely to be found or otherwise underrepresented.

fact checking: the act of verifying assertions.

herding phenomenon: as more journalists begin to cover a story, even more journalists join the herd, imitating the angle the story initially took rather than seeking alternative approaches.

native advertising: paid, sponsored content designed to look like the legitimate content produced by the media outlet.

triangulation or cross verification: establishing validity by using several research methods and analyzing and examining multiple sources in the hope that diverse viewpoints will shed greater light on a topic.

virality: the rapid circulation of media from one user to another.  When we forward sensational stories, often from social media without checking their credibility in other sources, we increase their virality.