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[Audio] Fake News: What It Is and How to Spot It

League of Women Voters - Hopkinsville, KY, Facebook

The League of Women Voters-Hopkinsville and Hopkinsville Community College co-sponsored the program, “Inventing News vs. Reporting It: How do we know if what we are reading is fake?” Monday evening. Jennifer Brown, former editor and opinion editor for the Kentucky New Era, led the discussion about how to spot fake news and how to help squash it. She speaks with Tracy Ross on Sounds Good. 

 

Brown says fake news can be one of a few things: outright false, intentionally misleading, or so poorly reported that it is inaccurate. She says satire and propaganda have been around for centuries but the trouble now is that stories are written specifically to deceive people and the internet makes it easy to share those stories rapidly.

 

Brown says there are a couple of indicators that the news you are consuming is false:

  • There should be information about who the writer works for and how to contact them. If there isn’t, that’s a sign the news source is not reputable.

  • There should be other news sources covering the same issue or topic. If no similar news comes up with a Google search, that is a clue the article could be fake.

 
“It can be a lot of work to be a news consumer…. That’s what concerns me as much as anything is how much time are people going to have to verify information and do what I call the heavy-lifting to make sure they’re reading and listening to credible news,” Brown said.

 

 

Tracy started working for WKMS in 1994 while attending Murray State University. After receiving his Bachelors and Masters degrees from MSU he was hired as Operations/Web/Sports Director in 2000. Tracy hosted All Things Considered from 2004-2012 and has served as host/producer of several music shows including Cafe Jazz, and Jazz Horizons. In 2001, Tracy revived Beyond The Edge, a legacy alternative music program that had been on hiatus for several years. Tracy was named Program Director in 2011 and created the midday music and conversation program Sounds Good in 2012 which he hosts Monday-Thursday. Tracy lives in Murray with his wife, son and daughter.
A proud native of Murray, Kentucky, Allison grew up roaming the forests of western Kentucky and visiting national parks across the country. She graduated in 2014 from Murray State University where she studied Environmental Sustainability, Television Production, and Spanish. She loves meeting new people, questioning everything, and dancing through the sun and the rain. She hopes to make a positive impact in this world several endeavors at a time.
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