separating fact from fake

“It’s amazing how many dystopian novels predicted this,” says a woman to her two companions. “‘1984.’ How about the ‘The Hunger Games?’”

One of her friends says she hasn’t read “The Hunger Games,” and the others promise to lend her a copy. They are discussing news events from the last two weeks since President Donald Trump took office.

Many at the relatively full house attending a “Fact vs. Fiction” panel hosted by Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal last week at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun seemed to share the women’s disbelief at current events, and hoped to learn from the event’s speakers how to cope with fake news and alternative facts.

Some pointers the panelists gave out at the well-attended forum urged consumers of media to be skeptical of everything: look out for headlines that promise to reveal something “the media” doesn’t want them to know, make sure the article has a byline by an actual person, check the publication’s website’s “about” section to see if it is a parody or satirical.

“The best fact-checker is between your ears,” Damaso Reyes, program coordinator at the News Literacy Project,” said. “We shouldn’t get too reliant on any one website ... any one technology to save us. The 21st century is about being engaged and critical of the information you are encountering.”

Reyes was joined on the panel by Katherine Fry, a professor of media studies at Brooklyn College CUNY; DC Vito, executive director of the Learning about Multimedia Project; Darragh Worland, vice president of digital media at the News Literacy Project; and moderator Michelle Ciulla, executive director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education.

The group was assembled by Rosenthal in partnership with the National Association for Media Literacy Education. Its goal was to address widespread concern over unreliable media sources and how best to know what’s really going on in the world.

A main focus of the panel was social media, which has radically changed the way information spreads and is spread.

“Journalists are actively seeking new ways to do their job,” Fry said. “You are now part of that pool. If you are at all on social media, you are part of the new face of journalism.”

She described the new digital environment we live in, reminding listeners that countless algorithms dictate what they see on the internet. When Ciulla Lipkin read out the numbers of people who have active Facebook and Twitter accounts — a billion on Facebook and 313 million on Twitter — there was an audibly shocked response from attendees.

One attendee asked what concrete steps can be taken to separate sponsored content from genuine journalism, to which Vito suggested installing ad-blocking software. But even this method isn’t perfect, Worland pointed out, because blocking ads can deprive the news outlet of much-needed revenue.

Closing out the forum, Rosenthal reminded the audience to try to avoid being overwhelmed by the breakneck pace of the endless news cycle.

“Make sure you get enough sleep, make sure you’re eating right, take some showers,” she said, eliciting laughter. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m talking to myself. But do it because we’re in this for the long game. [Trump] will win if we tire ourselves out.”

Madeleine Thompson can be reached at newsreporter@strausnews.com