{"id":90773,"date":"2025-10-13T16:19:44","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T21:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=90773"},"modified":"2025-10-13T16:19:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T21:19:56","slug":"how-to-series-panel-discusses-how-to-navigate-misinformation-and-manipulation-in-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=90773","title":{"rendered":"How To Series panel discusses how to navigate misinformation and manipulation in media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By RORY MOORE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fort Hays State University\u2019s Tebo Library partnered with the Hays Public Library to host a panel discussion about misinformation and avoiding manipulation by news media for its \u201cHow-To-Series\u201d on Thursday. The panel consisted of HPL Kansas Room Coordinator Jeremy Gill, Law and Political Science Professor Brittney Reed, Learning Coordinator Andy Tincknell, Information Literacy Librarian Robyn Hartman and retired Communications Studies Professor Linn Ann Huntington, and was moderated by Engagement Specialist Anna Towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first question for the panel was about identifying real news from false, and Tincknell cited a study by the Association of Computing Machinery in his answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a 50\/50 coin toss whether we can identify whether something is fake or real,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s getting tough, and it\u2019s going to get tougher because the things we\u2019re using to detect the fakes are lagging behind how fast the fakers are improving. So, that\u2019s the bad news, but the good news is there are some strategies to look at. There are fact-checker sites, and there\u2019s the old-school way to stop, take a breath, and figure this out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hartman cited the SIFT method developed by digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield to evaluate the credibility and reliability of online information, which stands for Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, and Trace the context. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf it makes you stop and think about it, then that\u2019s something to recognize,\u2019is this even real?\u2019 If you\u2019re asking yourself that question, stop when you\u2019re getting hit with a lot of information that is perhaps feeding on your emotions and building them up,\u201d Hartman said. \u201cA lot of stuff has been happening that if you keep reading about it, and if it doesn\u2019t sound right in your mind, then that\u2019s the clue that maybe it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reed expanded that point with the strategy of using consensual validation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat means we\u2019re hearing the same thing from different sources,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you\u2019re seeing it from one source, take it with a grain of salt. You want to find several sources that are saying the same thing, particularly when it\u2019s information that seems too crazy to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huntington, a former journalist, believes that the time people take to find trustworthy sources depends on how eagerly they want truthful news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJournalists always had to engage in fact-finding efforts,\u201d she said. \u201cThat means not just trusting one source, but getting confirmation from different sources. In the past, we\u2019ve had gatekeepers, meaning journalists and editors who perform that function for us, and now, at least on the internet, there are no gatekeepers or government oversight of the internet at all. So, anybody can post anything they want, and it doesn\u2019t have to be true. It can be a hoax. So, it depends on how badly people want to know the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another issue discussed was people\u2019s dependence on one source that fits their ideological stance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany people are stuck in their own echo chambers,\u201d Tincknell said. \u201cThey\u2019re following the things they agree with, and getting out of that echo chamber, listening for other opinions, and giving them the time of day by not just neglecting them because they don\u2019t necessarily agree with you, is an important thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reed also emphasized accountability in verifying news on the citizen level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne thing lost in our culture is we haven\u2019t kept each other accountable,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you say, \u2018Is anybody going to take the time to research this?\u2019 The thing is, we get this online disinhibition where we don\u2019t have to face the consequences of posting something that was incorrect or maybe got people into a frenzy or caused an argument unless our peers keep us accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill stated that the primary role of educators and librarians is to train people to verify their course in the age of AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn my role, I stand as [somewhat of] a reference librarian,\u201d he said. \u201cI teach a class on contemporary issues, and one thing we\u2019re trying to teach students is to not always jump to AI. That\u2019s not saying don\u2019t ever use it, it\u2019s telling people to stop and think about what you\u2019re looking at. Some databases we use are user-generated, and they\u2019re compiling information very quickly, and that\u2019s nice on the surface level of wanting something fast, but not all of it is accurate, and people don\u2019t realize that those things are harmful until it comes back on you. So, I try to tell people, \u2018Don\u2019t believe everything you hear.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huntington singled out cable news as being a purveyor of misinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think cable news is a misnomer,\u201d she said. \u201cIt should be called cable opinion because the vast majority of what you find on cable news networks is opinion and commentary, which there\u2019s nothing wrong with, but you need to know that\u2019s what you\u2019re getting when you tune into Fox News or MSNBC, or even ESPN. Facts are things that can be verified and proven, while opinions are things that cannot be proven one way of the other. These experts that cable news relies on to give us commentary, not all experts are created equal, so not all opinions are well researched.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By RORY MOORE Tiger Media Network Fort Hays State University\u2019s Tebo Library partnered with the Hays Public Library to host a panel discussion about misinformation… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":90774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":false,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,11,3570],"tags":[16429,15907,16178,15879,16430,15700],"class_list":["post-90773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-news","category-politics-news","tag-how-to-panel","tag-how-to-series","tag-media-bias","tag-media-literacy","tag-media-misinformation","tag-rory-moore"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/How-To-Panel-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C845&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90773"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90776,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90773\/revisions\/90776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/90774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}