How to Spot a Bogus News Site

News Literacy Project: “Now-former Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan writes about the crisis of local news deserts—areas that have lost outlets that, for many years, were trusted sources of journalism—and how partisan news sites disguised as legitimate have filled these voids to push partisan agendas with news-looking propaganda.”

NLP: “Aspen Digital Executive Director Vivian Schiller discusses how businesses and media can build trust in a time rife with disinformation. Though she says we’ve never had as much high-quality journalism as we do now, there are consequences to an oversaturated market—some credible sources may be drowned out by those who don’t value accuracy or authenticity. This is why media players must be responsible for holding industry peers accountable and safeguarding reliable information sources.”

NLP: “There are so many sources competing for your attention online, including partisan blogs and bogus sites posing as legitimate news organizations. It can be tough to know what to trust. Our quiz gives you a chance to explore what ‘credibility’ looks like and how to recognize it.”

NLP: “An experimental platform that puts moderation in the hands of its users shows that people do evaluate posts effectively and share their assessments with others.”

NLP: “This article looks at how to critically ignore mis-, dis- or malinformation, with a chart showing the types of information, targeted outcomes, and behavioral and cognitive strategies for critical ignoring.”

NLP: “Some of the vacuums in news deserts have been filled by partisan, digital-first journalism. The danger is that readers are being served emotive, partisan, divisive news disguised as community reporting, conflating the two. You can read more about how audiences interact with these in the Tow Center study here.”

NLP: “Confused about the difference between mis- and disinformation? We created a quick guide to help you identify each one in the wild, especially on social media, where both thrive thanks to short attention spans.”

NLP: “With trust in news at an all-time low, it’s never been more important for newsrooms to be transparent about their work—and explain the decisions that the average consumer of their product might not initially understand. On this page, Trusting News provides highlights of newsrooms being exemplary in this practice.”