Chapter 12: Evaluating Sources

Clearly, in an era of “post-truth,” “alternative facts,” and countless news sources that move seamlessly between a reporting of the basic details and ideological analysis of and commentary upon the news, it has become more and more difficult to discern what, exactly, we should pay most attention to when looking at sources (Hicks & Turner, 2018). Even when attempting to engage in some of the skills noted above—like reading laterally or applying website evaluation tools—students cannot always understand all the elements at play in the composition of a website (e.g., discovering more about who created the website or the date it was published, the nuances of biased language, omission of various facts). Even Mike Caufield’s strategy to “SIFT,” which includes the steps of stopping, investigating the source, finding better coverage, and tracing claims and quotes back to the original context (Caulfield, 2019) does not always help students figure out exactly what the sources are saying. Still, media literacy strategies can be incredibly useful for interrogating sources and helping students summarize what they have discovered both from and about those sources.