Skill: Click Through & Find with Mike Caulfield
Summary
TLDRThis video script emphasizes the importance of verifying information by tracing it back to its original source to avoid misleading or deceptive content. It illustrates how re-reporting can alter the context and presents strategies to find and assess the accuracy of the original reporting. The script uses examples, such as a headline about Canadian views on defunding the police and a tweet misrepresenting a political leader's stance, to demonstrate the process of fact-checking and the significance of context in understanding news stories.
Takeaways
- 🔍 Verifying information by going back to the original source is crucial to avoid misleading or deceptive information.
- 🗣️ The context of a story can be lost or altered when it's re-reported, which can lead to misinformation.
- 🔗 If a website doesn't provide a link to the original source, use search techniques to find it.
- 📊 A slim majority in polls, like 51%, should not be exaggeratedly reported as a broad consensus.
- 📰 The original source often provides more accurate and nuanced information compared to re-reports.
- 📈 Understanding the context, like the meaning of 'defund the police', is essential for informed discussions.
- 🚫 Misinformation can spread through false context or framing, where real content is shared with a misleading summary.
- 🔎 Use 'find in page' feature (ctrl-f or command-f) to quickly verify claims within a webpage.
- 👀 Always check the original source and not just rely on someone else's summary, even if it's from a reputable source.
- ✅ The habit of tracing information to its original source can lead to higher quality and more complete information.
Q & A
Why is it important to trace information back to its original source?
-Tracing information back to its original source is important because it helps to ensure that the information has not been distorted or misrepresented through re-reporting or false context.
What is the analogy used in the script to describe the process of tracing information?
-The script uses the analogy of 'going back to the first person in a game of broken telephone' to explain the importance of finding the original source of information.
What is re-reporting and how can it lead to misinformation?
-Re-reporting is when a website takes information originally reported elsewhere, summarizes it, and possibly blends it with other information or sources. This can lead to misinformation if crucial details are omitted or if the summary is misleading.
How can one find the original source of a story if it's not provided?
-If the original source is not provided, one can usually find it using search terms and the same techniques used to verify if a claim was reported by other sources.
What did the Global News article reveal about the majority of Canadians' views on defunding the police?
-The Global News article, based on a poll by Ipsos, revealed that 51 percent of Canadians support the idea of defunding the police, which is a slim majority.
What is the difference between the headline in the re-reported story and the original Global News article?
-The re-reported story's headline exaggeratedly claimed a majority of Canadians support defunding the police, while the Global News headline more accurately described Canadians as divided on the issue.
Why is it beneficial to get into the habit of tracing information to the original source?
-Tracing information to the original source can lead to higher quality sources that often provide more complete or nuanced stories, which helps in avoiding misinformation.
What is false context or false framing, and how does it spread misinformation?
-False context or false framing occurs when real content is shared with a false comment or summary that misrepresents the story, leading to the spread of misinformation.
How can one verify the accuracy of a claim made on social media, such as a tweet?
-One can verify the accuracy of a claim on social media by clicking through to the linked source and using the 'find in page' feature to search for keywords related to the claim.
What technique can be used to quickly check the accuracy of a claim within a webpage?
-The 'find in page' feature can be used to quickly search for keywords within a webpage to verify the accuracy of a claim or to find additional context.
How did the person who shared the story on Twitter misrepresent the actual content of the Globe and Mail article?
-The person on Twitter misrepresented the Globe and Mail article by claiming that the NDP leader praised Trump and suggested Canada should adopt US policies, which was not supported by the actual content of the article.
Outlines
🔍 Verifying Information Sources
This paragraph emphasizes the importance of verifying the accuracy of information by tracing it back to its original source. It uses the analogy of the 'broken telephone' game to illustrate how information can become distorted as it's passed along. The example of a news story about Canadian support for defunding the police is given, highlighting how re-reporting can lead to misleading headlines and a lack of context. The paragraph advises using search techniques to find the original source and checking for proper representation, which can lead to more reliable and nuanced information.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Context
💡Misleading Information
💡Original Source
💡Re-reporting
💡Verification
💡False Context
💡Search Terms
💡Misinformation
💡Majority
💡Divided Opinion
💡Systemic Racism
Highlights
Stories and claims can lose context online, leading to misleading or deceptive information.
It's crucial to trace information back to the original source to verify its accuracy.
The analogy of 'broken telephone' is used to illustrate the importance of original sources.
Re-reporting can lead to information loss and misrepresentation.
Original reporting sources are often provided with links, aiding in verification.
Lack of provided links doesn't hinder finding original stories; search techniques can be used.
Global News commissioned a poll revealing 51% of Canadians support defunding the police.
Headlines can exaggerate or misrepresent the content; original sources provide a more accurate picture.
Context is vital for understanding stories, and original sources often provide this.
Misinformation spreads through false context or framing, misrepresenting real content.
A Tweet example shows how a story's summary can be misleading if not verified with the original source.
Using search functions on web pages to verify claims is a quick and effective method.
The importance of verifying summaries provided by unknown or untrusted sources.
The practical demonstration of using 'ctrl+f' to search for keywords in a web page.
The necessity of checking the entire story for accuracy, not just relying on keywords.
The conclusion emphasizes the value of verifying information to combat misinformation.
Transcripts
When stories and claims travel online they can lose important context and sometimes
misleading or deceptive information can take its place. So when looking at a story or a
photo that reaches you, it's important to get as close to the original source as possible.
Think of it like going back to the first person in a game of broken telephone. You know the message
that reached you, but to find out whether it's been garbled you've got to go back to the original
source. The good news is it's relatively easy to get closer to the original source and once
you have found that source, easy to figure out whether the source has been properly represented.
Let's look at an example: the headline of this story claims that the majority
of Canadians support defunding the police. Now this is a case of re-reporting. Often a website
will take information originally reported somewhere else. The site may summarize that
original report, cut parts out, blend it with other information, other sources on the same
topic and that can be helpful, but a lot can be left out in that process of re-reporting.
If we scroll down, we see that there is a link included to the original reporting source,
Global News, and we're lucky here since we're given that link.
But if the site hadn't provided that link it wouldn't matter.
You can usually find the original story using the search terms, the same sort of techniques
we used earlier, to see if a claim was reported by other sources.
Now what do we learn when we look at this Global News article?
Well, so Global commissioned a poll from the polling firm Ipsos and it found that 51 percent of
Canadians support the idea of defunding the police. Now first we notice the headline
here is a little bit different, right, a little bit different than on the story that we found.
The original headline referred to a majority of Canadians, but this feels a little bit exaggerated
since in this case the majority is very slim- just 51 to 49. The Global headline here is much
more measured, probably more accurate, saying Canadians are divided on the issue.
Looking at the Global story we also get more context. First, the article describes what defund
the police means which is important context for this discussion. Getting into the habit of tracing
information to the original source can help bring you to higher quality sources,
sources which often provide this more complete or more nuanced story. One way
misinformation can spread is through false context. False context or false framing
is when real content is shared with a false comment or summary that misrepresents the story.
Take this Tweet. This person shared a surprising story on Twitter claiming that the NDP leader
praised US president Donald Trump and said that Canada should adopt US policies on race.
Now initially this looks good. The link that they shared goes to the Globe and Mail,
a reliable source. The headline suggests that the story is actually about Singh asking Prime
Minister Trudeau to address systemic racism in Canada. But there's two parts to this, right?
There's the linked story, right, which is from a reputable source which we know and then there's
this reaction to what's said in that story, which here is provided by someone that we don't know.
So what do we do? Well we start by just clicking into the story right? That's step one.
For step two we want to see if this claim is accurate or if we're missing
additional context. Now we can read the whole story from top to bottom but a faster way
to check this is to search the page for keywords, so let's do that here.
Many of you will already know how to search a web page but just in case on desktop browsers you use
ctrl-f, command-f on a Mac. On a phone, use this little drop down on your browser-
this is usually in the upper right hand corner. It says "find in page" or something like that.
We plug in the search terms and since we're interested in whether Singh actually praised
Trump let's just start with "Trump." This brings us immediately to the quote in question
where Singh does reference Trump but it's hardly praise. He accuses Trudeau of doing even less
than Trump in terms of policy change, but also says that Trump has been horrible on this issue.
If we go back to our ctrl+f trick an plug-in "policy" we see that this is the only reference
to policy in the article. Singh isn't exactly saying that Canada should adopt US policies.
It's an interesting article. Singh is certainly critical of how the Canadian government is
addressing systemic racism, but his response was completely misrepresented by the person
who shared the story on Twitter. The upshot is this: if a source that you don't know or trust is
summarizing a link for you, verify their summary by clicking through and executing a simple search
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