Lateral Reading Fake News And Alternative Facts Finding Accurate

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Nov 30, 2025, 10:09 PM

lateral reading fake news and alternative facts finding accurate

Here is how Peter Adams, the News Literacy Project’s senior vice president of education, described it during a March 14 segment of NPR’s All Things Considered: “The equivalent of taking 20 seconds and washing your hands is very much the same in the information space. If everyone can take 20 seconds, investigate the source, do a quick Google search, stay skeptical, we can eliminate a great deal of the confusion and misinformation out there.” From https://newslit.org/tips-tools/take-20-seconds-for-good-information-hygiene/ If you are unfamiliar with the source, it is always a good idea to open a new tab and do a web search on the source and/or the organization that is providing it. This is what is called "lateral" reading.

From: https://library.nwacc.edu/lateralreading Lateral reading is a simple and effective means of evaluating online information sources to help you learn if an unfamiliar website is conveying worthwhile, trustworthy information. When you come across a site new to you, don't start by actually looking at the page itself, or looking for artificial markers of "legitimacy" like the About page, URL, or citations. Instead, move laterally away from the page by opening a new tab in your browser and conducting a web search for the site or its author to see what others have to say about... Bad actors on the internet will, of course, tell you they're trustworthy, but newspaper stories, fact checking sites, or even Wikipedia articles about them may help you discover the site's ill intentions. The following short videos explain lateral reading in greater detail:

Crumb Library: 315-267-2485 Crane Library: 315-267-2451 library@potsdam.edu Text Us!: 315-277-3730 SUNY Potsdam College Libraries 44 Pierrepont Ave Potsdam, NY 13676 Lateral readers don’t spend time on the page or site until they’ve first gotten their bearings by looking at what other sites and resources say about the source they are looking at. 1. See what other authoritative sources have said about the site. 2.

Open up many tabs in the browser, piecing together different bits of information from across the web to get a better picture of the site you are investigating. 3. Evaluate the information in other pages that offer information about the source under investigation. The truth is more likely to be found in the network of links (and commentaries) than in the site itself. 4. When you get your bearings from the rest of the network, re-engage with the original content.

One of the most effective strategies for evaluating information found online is to engage in lateral reading. Lateral reading involves leaving the website, opening a new tab, and seeing what trusted digital sources say about that website and/or claim. The below CrashCourse video explains how you can use lateral reading to fact-check a source. It is important to note that several tools have been developed from lateral reading, most notably the SIFT method. This strategy walks through four "moves" that you need to take before reading and engaging with an online source. For more information, see the SIFT Method infographic.

This video was created by CrashCourse in partnership with MediaWise, the Poynter Institute, and the Stanford History Education Group. This video was created by CNTRL-F with support from CIVIX. ⚠️Is a link not working? Click here to report it. 660-248-6271 library@centralmethodist.edu Four Moves by Michael A.

Caulfield is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, To dig a little deeper into reading laterally from the SIFT method above, take the Evaluating Digital Sources Using Lateral Reading tutorial from Credo. The critical evaluation of information is an essential skill that can be used throughout your life. It involves a combination of common sense, knowledge, skepticism, and verification.With so much information available, in many different formats, and from many different sources, each piece of information that you select must be carefully... But what do you look for? It can be overwhelming.

The CRAAP Test is a set of five evaluation criteria and related questions to help guide thinking about whether a source is credible or not. CRAAP is an acronym for: Not all sources of information are created equal. In addition to the reputation for reliability and impartiality, critical thinkers need to consider format. Online news sources can appear, at first glance, to be legitimate but it is quite simple to create a fake or untrustworthy online presence. Clues to authenticity include:

It can be easy to think what that all news media is trustworthy, but it's not always that simple. While news media focuses on providing accurate information, that info can sometimes come with bias or only share what the source thinks is relevant about a story. Reading laterally helps you evaluate your source and consider: do you have an objective account of what's happening oris there something you aren't being told? When researching, people usually read vertically, reading through a source all at once. With vertical reading, sources are examined individually and independently from one another. There is risk, though — what if it's not as trustworthy as it looks?

Lateral reading, also known as horizontal reading, focuses on fact-checking as you go and combining yourpool ofknowledge from everything you read. In this short video from Crash Course: Navigating Digital Information, John Green teaches you how to employ lateral reading in evaluating your information. Lateral reading means: “instead of digging deep into the site at hand...lateral readers don’t spend time on the page or site until they’ve first gotten their bearings by looking at what other sites and... they get off the page...they open up many tabs in their browser. From Caulfield, M. A.

(2017). Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers. https://collection.bccampus.ca/textbooks/web-literacy-for-student-fact-checkers-361/ GO WIDE: Lateral reading is a strategy for investigating who's behind an unfamiliar online source by leaving the webpage and opening a new browser tab to see what trusted websites say about the unknown... It helps you determine an author’s credibility, intent and biases by searching for articles on the same topic by other writers (to see how they are covering it) and for other articles by the... It's one of the primary strategies employed by professional fact checkers.

The lateral reading concept and the term itself developed from research conducted by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG), led by Sam Wineburg, founder and executive director of SHEG. Investigate the authors of the online information and why they wrote it by reading beyond the current page. Open a new tab in your browser and conduct an internet search on the authors, the evidence for their claims, and what others have said about them. You can also search on fact-checking websites (see list on previous page) or use reliable news sources available to you through the DCCC Learning Commons (see the Accessing Reliable News page in this guide). Crash Course. (2019, January 22).

Check yourself with lateral reading: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #3. [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/GoQG6Tin-1E The term Lateral Reading was coined by Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew in their 2019 study, "Lateral Reading and the Nature of Expertise", on internet source evaluation techniques. The strategy of Lateral Reading employed by expert fact checkers involves opening a new browser tab to evaluate a source based on information from other trusted sources, rather than evaluating the source itself for...

Lateral reading is similar to Triangulation but focuses more on evaluating the source of the information rather than the information itself. Search for information about the company or website. Tip: To exclude results from the website itself, use the -site operator. For example "News Target" -site:https://newstarget.com Wikipedia and established news outlets such as New York Times and Wall Street Journal have standards for reliability and fact checking. Other source evaluation techniques suggest visiting a website's "About" page.

This page is usually written to favorably represent the what the purpose of the website. You can use a domain lookup tool like ICANN Lookup to find out who a website is registered to. Use fact checking sites such as Snopes or others listed on this guide to fact check. If claims are proceeded by "research indicates", search for research articles on Articles+ or Google Scholar.

Lateral Reading Fake News And Alternative Facts Finding Accurate

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