GSAN: Out of the rabbit hole | Moon landing debunk

Top reads

A roundup of the latest topics in news literacy and misinformation.

Misinformation

• “Quiz: Most Americans are overconfident in their ability to spot fake news. Are you one of them?” (Katie Mather, Yahoo News).
• “These conspiracy theory believers went deep down the rabbit hole — then found a way out” (Anna Kelsey-Sugg, Sana Qadar and Rose Kerr, Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio National).
• “Presidential election a prime target for foreign disinformation, intelligence officials say” (David Klepper, The Associated Press).
• Video: “Disinformation Bots choose ‘Woman Identities’ to Gain Trust & Get Clicks” (WRAL-TV).
• “Dark money news outlets outpacing local daily newspapers” (Sara Fischer, Axios).

Social media

• Opinion: “Surgeon General: Why I’m Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms” (Vivek H. Murthy, The New York Times).
• “A growing number of Americans are getting their news from TikTok” (Gaby Del Valle, The Verge).
  • Related: “How Americans Get News on TikTok, X, Facebook and Instagram” (Elisa Shearer, Sarah Naseer, Jacob Liedke and Katerina Eva Matsa, Pew Research Center).
• “Your social media diet is becoming easier to exploit” (A.W. Ohlheiser, Vox).

Artificial intelligence

• “An AI Bot Is (Sort of) Running for Mayor in Wyoming” (Vittoria Elliott, Wired).
• Video: “Expert shows 3 ways you can detect an article written by AI” (Hadas Gold, CNN).
  • Note: This CNN video features Christina Veiga, Senior Director of Media Relations at the News Literacy Project. 
• “Google still recommends glue for your pizza” (Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge).
• “AI start-up sees thousands of vulnerabilities in popular tools” (Taylor Lorenz, The Washington Post).

Press freedom

• “WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich, Falsely Accused of Espionage, Is Indicted in Russia” (Ann M. Simmons, The Wall Street Journal).
• “This prison newspaper has been publishing for more than a century” (Meg Anderson, NPR).

Reflect on mainstream newsrooms’ legacies of harm.

As many newsrooms today aim to build public trust, it’s important to recognize the historical failure of mainstream news organizations to represent and serve all people equally. This Juneteenth, learn more about how historically harmful news coverage impacted Black Americans in the “Harm & Distrust” lesson from NLP’s Checkology® e-learning platform.

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Featured video

Learn how a reverse image search can help debunk moon landing conspiracy theories in this NLP TikTok video. This video can also be viewed on Instagram.

Thanks for reading!

Your weekly issue of Get Smart About News is created by Susan Minichiello (@susanmini), Dan Evon (@danieljevon), Peter Adams (@PeterD_Adams), Hannah Covington (@HannahCov) and Pamela Brunskill (@PamelaBrunskill). It is edited by Mary Kane (@marykkane) and Lourdes Venard (@lourdesvenard).

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