Before you vote, double-check your facts

Washington, D.C., Oct. 24, 2018 — As U.S. voters prepare to go to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 6, the News Literacy Project is urging them to double-check their facts before they vote. The News Literacy Project is a nonpartisan national education nonprofit that works with educators and journalists to teach middle school and high school students how to sort fact from fiction in the digital age.

“Every election year it seems harder and harder to arm ourselves with the best possible information before casting our vote,” says Alan C. Miller, founder and CEO of the News Literacy Project. “The internet makes a world of information available at our fingertips, but it also makes both age-old dirty tricks and digital-age misinformation much easier to disseminate.”

To encourage voters to beware of misinformation and fight for facts, the News Literacy Project and the global communications marketing firm Edelman teamed up to create the seemingly “Easiest Quiz of All Time.” In this humorous street quiz, comedian and filmmaker Mark Malkoff tests contestants about widely misremembered facts.

What viewers learn, among other things, is that no, Darth Vader did not say “Luke, I am your father” — and, most important, that overconfidence about what we believe we know and a failure to “double-check” lead to incorrect answers and, potentially, uninformed decisions.

“In this age of information overload, we have to work harder than ever to get the facts – and it’s essential that we carefully consider the source and the content of everything that we encounter before we pass it on,” Miller says. “By making informed choices, we give facts a fighting chance and keep our democracy strong.”

Watch the “Easiest Quiz of All Time” and visit newslit.org for more tips about how to double-check your facts.