What mistake did npr make when reporting the giffords story?

Sources / 5.1 Credibility Questions: 0 of 3 complete (0%) | 0 of 2 correct (0%)

Credibility

When claims are presented to you, evaluate them by asking two key questions:

1. How credible is the claim itself?

2. How credible is the source of the claim?

First, let's consider the credibility of the claim itself. When you're thinking critically, you're evaluating every claim against what you already know to see if it seems plausible or implausible. Consider the following claims:

I can run three miles in 30 minutes.

I can teleport up to 300 meters away.

Does one seem more believable than the other? That's what we mean by considering the credibility of the claim. In fact, the literal meaning of "incredible" is "unbelievable" or "impossible."

You're constantly evaluating claims against things you already know. And the more you know about a topic, the better you can judge a claim's credibility. For example, imagine that your car has developed an odd rattling noise. A mechanic tells you that it's likely the heat shield protecting your catalytic converter. If you don't know exactly what the catalytic converter is or where to find it under the hood, you might run this diagnosis by a trusted friend who has more experience working on cars to see if it sounds credible.

Whenever you're evaluating a claim, keep an eye out for the following:

· Whether evidence is offered to support the claim

· Whether there are any obvious inaccuracies

· Whether the claim is an observation or an inferred conclusion

Every day, according to the Department of Transportation, 1.73 million people travel on domestic flights in the United States. And every day, airlines dispense more than 10 million plastic cups to these passengers—cups that go straight into our landfills.

Does this sound credible? There are three claims here. First, do you find the Department of Transportation credible? If you do a quick search, you'll find that the website of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics does in fact provide this exact information. Now, based on your personal experience with air travel, does it seem likely that each passenger uses about five cups when they fly? Finally, do all airlines throw away these cups or do some of them have recycling programs? These are the kinds of questions to ask when sizing up the credibility of a claim.

Answer the following questions about the material above.

A credible claim has which of the following characteristics?

· It is unexpected and memorable.

· It contains premises and a conclusion.

· It appears to be plausibly true.

· It uses inductive reasoning to reach a conclusion.

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Marcus claims that if you have diabetes, you should avoid starchy foods like bread and potatoes. Which of the following situations would MOST likely make you question the credibility of his claim?

· You remember seeing a news report on television that highlighted several studies showing a link between diabetes and the consumption of starchy foods.

· Several of your family members have diabetes and were told by their doctors that starch-heavy foods can be incorporated into a healthy diabetic diet.

· Marcus is a diabetic himself and had a number of diabetes-related health problems when he ate too many starchy foods.

· Marcus cites a number of peer-reviewed sources to back up his claim.

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Your friend tells you that neutron stars have an escape velocity of twice the speed of light. How would you go about determining whether or not her claim is credible?

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Practice: Credibility

How Much Do We Waste?

Forty percent of the food we produce in this country never gets eaten.

Your junk mail alone adds 39 pounds of garbage to the landfill every year.

Somewhere between 500 billion and one trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year.

Shocking statistics can be an impressive way to get people's attention and motivate them into action on behalf of a good cause. But as with any claim, it's worth investigating these stated facts rather than taking them at face value. In the following activity, you will look at several different websites to explore the credibility of claims about waste.

Use the embedded links to answer the questions below.

The first step to evaluating credibility is to ask yourself whether or not the claim seems believable at first glance.

Poll

Suppose you hear someone say that people in the United States throw away 250 million tons of garbage each year. Off the top of your head, how credible does this claim seem?

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· Very credible

· Credible

· Not sure

· Not very credible

· Not credible at all

Submit

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Sometimes numerical claims are easier to evaluate when you do the math and break down exactly what the claim is saying.

According to the U.S. Census, there were approximately 309 million people in the United States in 2010. If the statistic about Americans throwing away 250 million tons of garbage per year is true, roughly how much trash would each person be throwing away each year, on average?

· a little less than one hundred tons per person

· a little less than one ton per person

· a little less than half of a ton per person

· a little less than ten tons per person

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When you're investigating a claim about which you have very little background information, websites like Wikipedia can often serve as good starting points to find out more information.

Look at the Wikipedia entry on Landfills in the United States. According to this page, how much trash did Americans produce in 2010?

· about 350 million tons of trash

· about 250 tons of trash

· about 150 tons of trash

· about 250 million tons of trash

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Because websites like Wikipedia rely on user-written and user-edited content, to investigate further, you want to find out where Wikipedia got this information to better determine if it's accurate.

The footnote accompanying that particular statistic goes to the Landfills page of the EPA's website. What does this webpage say about how much trash Americans generate per year?

· It does not provide any statistics about how much trash Americans generate each year.

· It says that Americans generate 100 million tons of trash each year.

· It says that Americans generate 250 tons of trash each year.

· It says that Americans generate 258 million tons of trash each year.

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Knowing what you know now, do you think this claim is credible? If not, what other information would you need before you'd accept it as definite fact?

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To recap, here is a list of basic steps to follow when investigating a claim:

1. Ask yourself if the claim sounds credible off the top of your head.

2. Think about what the claim is actually stating, doing the math if necessary.

3. Look up the claim on the Internet to see where it came from.

4. Once you find the claim, check if the website references a source.

5. If the website does provide references, investigate those websites for credibility.

Use the steps above to investigate the following claim.

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As you're browsing the web, you come across this site , which claims that Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour. Go through just the first three steps from above. Using just that information, explain why you believe (or don’t believe) this claim.

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Sources / 5.3 Experts Questions: 0 of 2 complete (0%) | 0 of 2 correct (0%)

Experts

As we said previously, when claims are presented to you, you should evaluate them with two questions:

1. How credible is the claim itself?

2. How credible is the source of the claim?

Now let's take up the challenge of evaluating a source. This process also relies on two essential questions:

1. Is the source likely to have accurate information and authentic knowledge?

2. Is there reason to think that the source might be intentionally misleading?

Expertise

An expert is someone who knows more than most people about a specific subject. We can't be knowledgeable about everything, so we look to experts for guidance. Expert opinion doesn't guarantee truth, but it is usually a reliable guide to it. You must have good reasons to be skeptical of a claim held by experts in the field.

If you're having trouble deciding if someone is truly an expert, here are some things to look for:

· Education from reputable institutions or in relevant programs

· Experience—the more in the field, the better

· Professional accomplishments that are directly relevant

· Reputation among peers

Limits of Expertise

Expertise adds credibility, but it only goes so far. As a critical thinker, you'll want to keep an eye out for the ways that the credibility of experts is damaged.

Expertise loses credibility when the expert

· makes a claim outside their area of expertise (remember the fallacy of unqualified authority)

· makes simple factual errors or mistakes in logic or reasoning

· seems to be speaking from an emotional orientation

· has a clear conflict of interests (e.g., being paid to present a specific view)

· doesn't provide sufficient support for tenuous claims

· holds a view in direct opposition to most other experts in the same subject area.

Peer Review

If a medical doctor does research and uncovers, say, a new method of treating cystic fibrosis, the finding isn't considered valid until it has been reviewed by other doctors specializing in this same field. This is called peer review, and it's used in numerous disciplines.

When reviewing a peer's work, scholars are typically checking to see that the author knows what he or she is talking about, has taken into account previous work in the field, and has added something new to the conversation about the topic.

Professional communities often publish journals that include only peer-reviewed articles as the official means of "certifying" new information as credible. This is most common with scientific research, academic scholarship, and professional journals. A peer-reviewed journal is typically your best source for the most credible information in such fields.

News

For more general information, such as today's news, our most credible sources are the major publishers and broadcasters like the New York Times, the BBC, and National Public Radio. These organizations are closely watched by competitors, critics, and colleagues, and the appearance of any false information is considered scandalous.

When the credibility of these sources is called into question, it is typically on the basis of the following errors:

· Skewed perspective (i.e., overemphasizing particular issues or viewpoints)

· Missing information

· Unprofessional reporters

· The profit motive (i.e., advertisers influencing content)

It's appropriate to be wary of what you see on the news if something in the report contradicts what you already know with a reasonable degree of certainty or if support for a claim isn't provided. Being human, reporters can

· make mistakes;

· let personal opinions govern how they research, interpret, and tell a story; or

· use the available information to make inferences that aren't justified.

Different news outlets will cover stories in varying depths. For example, after an eight-hour congressional hearing, NPR will typically run a five-minute story while CNN will cover the same event in 30 seconds. If you find a news story that seems puzzling to you, the confusion can often be cleared up simply by finding a source offering deeper coverage.

Answer the following questions about the material above.

Arlene is a neurologist and claims that if you have less sleep one night, you're likely to have more vivid and numerous dreams the following night. You might be inclined to question Arlene's expertise on the subject if you found out which of the following things?

· Arlene provides support for her claim and cites other well-respected experts in the field.

· The vast majority of neurologists believe that less sleep yields lessdreaming the following night.

· Arlene has been working at a sleep research center for the last 12 years.

· Arlene has a PhD and has been certified by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

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If an article has been peer-reviewed, you can count on which of the following?

· It is less credible than mainstream news outlets.

· The facts contained within it are guaranteed to be accurate.

· Other experts in the field have assessed it for quality control.

· It probably has a strong bias.

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Practice: Experts

Hasty Reporting, Regrettable Mistake

As noted above, the largest news publishers and broadcasters are usually very credible. But even giants like NPR are not infallible. In the following article, Alicia C. Shepherd describes the events leading to a crucial reporting error during the coverage of the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the remorse that members of the news organization felt afterwards.

Read the article below, and then answer the following questions.

NPR's Giffords Mistake: Re-Learning the Lesson of Checking Sources

What mistake did NPR make when reporting the Giffords story?

· They reported that the shooting had taken place in a shopping center, but it actually took place at a football stadium.

· They reported that Giffords had been shot, but only the people around her had actually been shot.

· They reported that the gunman had come up to Giffords' desk and started shooting people, but he actually used a sniper rifle from a distance.

· They reported that Giffords had been killed, but she was actually still alive and in the hospital.

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For what two reasons was this mistake especially serious?

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In this instance, NPR's blunder was a result of which of the following mistakes?

· NPR tried to immediately correct the mistake via email.

· NPR did not use a source with accurate, firsthand information.

· NPR had only one source for the report instead of at least two.

· Senior editors were consulted before going on air.

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The article mentions that other news sources, including CNN, Fox News, and the New York Times, repeated NPR's false story. To what extent do you think these other news organizations are accountable for the mistake?

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Twitter plays a role in the story of this reporting error. How do you think the rise of social media has impacted source credibility? On the whole, do you think social media outlets have helped to challenge questionable claims and hold the mainstream media accountable, or do they tend to lower the quality of information by spreading rumors and misinformation faster? Explain.

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Which of the following BEST describes the writer's evaluation of the situation?

· NPR got all the heat for reporting a mistake, but really their sources should be blamed.

· NPR has lost all credibility and should never be trusted again.

· NPR made a terrible, harmful mistake; however, they should be commended for their willingness to admit fault.

· The scandal was overblown and it wasn't that big of a deal that NPR made one small mistake.

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As discussed above, the two main questions to ask when evaluating a source are whether the source is likely to have accurate information and authentic knowledge, and whether there is reason to think that the source might be intentionally misleading. The story in this article demonstrates that even normally reliable sources can provide false information. How wary do you think the average person ought to be on a daily basis when receiving information from reputable news organizations?

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Everyone Else

Beyond formal scholarship and major news organizations, there is an ocean of sources that provide information and, in some cases, misinformation. In the digital age, literally anyone can make a claim or offer their opinion on something you're interested in.

Which earbuds should I buy?

How big should a chicken coop be?

What is business casual dress?

The most common ways to answer such questions are to ask friends, seek out people who might know, or look at the top hits in Google. But how can you tell which sources are most credible?

Information available on the Internet ranges from personal webpages expressing the opinion of one person unchecked by anyone else to digital outlets of the credible journal articles, experts, and major news organizations we discussed earlier.

When reading (or watching) anything on the web, the questions you ask should be the same as those that apply in any other context:

· Who is speaking or writing?

· What is the intended audience?

· Where are they speaking or writing?

· Who has invested the time and/or money to disseminate this?

The answers to these questions help you determine the perspective of a particular website, page, project, or author. Knowing the perspective helps you evaluate the claims being made.

Most information is put out there for a reason, so you can't escape the fact that everyone offering information is doing so with some kind of bias or agenda. Of course, just because they have a perspective doesn't necessarily mean the information is inaccurate. But if you can identify the perspective, you can find sources with competing perspectives to round out the picture. For example, in an election between two candidates, you'll learn a lot more by looking at both candidates' websites than by looking at just one and assuming it tells you all you need to know.

It's also important to be wary of user-written and user-edited information resources such as Wikipedia, About.com, or Yahoo Answers. While these sites often come up early on in search engine results, there is no guarantee that their content is authored by individuals with genuine expertise on the subject. These sites can provide fast information for low-stakes questions (like finding out what films a familiar-looking TV guest star appeared in) but you should cross-reference the information with additional resources for any matter of importance.

The first step in evaluating Internet resources is to start with the URL or web address of the page you're looking at. The URL will offer clues about the website's type and purpose.

.com = commercial site

Some commercial sites are promoting their own business, like Disney.com. These are perhaps best understood as advertisements. This doesn't mean the information they present is false, but it's important to understand the perspective of the site.

Other commercial sites belong to businesses that let people post whatever they want, such as YouTube.com. These sites rarely play any role in vouching for the validity of the content on their site.

.org = nonprofit site

Most .org sites are hosted by nonprofit organizations, and there are few nonprofit organizations without some sort of perspective. So you'll find different information about gun control at a site like NRA.org, which is set up to advocate for the rights of gun owners, than you will at a site like BradyCampaign.org, which is set up to advocate for tougher controls on gun ownership.

.gov = government site

Government sites are those hosted by the government. How credible you find them may depend on how much you trust government in general, but most government agencies have an interest in accurate data themselves and are not motivated to spread misinformation or deception.

.edu = educational or academic site

Educational sites belong to an accredited university and typically provide information about that particular school. Some of these websites also host pages that offer information about particular academic topics or research projects of interest to faculty at the school.

So it's up to you, as a critical thinker, to ask a few questions:

· What's the site's reputation? If you're not sure, you can search to see if the site is ever referenced by other sites you already find credible.

· Is the site well-produced and free of sloppy writing, spelling errors, and editorial mistakes?

· Does the author or speaker offer any credentials lending credibility to their claims?

· Could the information be outdated? For example, a 2004 article reviewing the best earbuds on the market is most likely no longer accurate.

· What person or organization created, sponsors, or vouches for the credibility of information on this website or page? And if they have a strong perspective from one side of a controversial issue, what other sources could help round out the picture?

Answer the following questions about the material above.

Poll

Imagine that you have just moved to a new city and suddenly experience car troubles. Which of the following strategies would you use to find an auto mechanic you can trust?

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· Ask your coworkers or neighbors for recommendations.

· Read online reviews of various local auto shops and pick the one with the most positive recommendations.

· Find out which local mechanics are certified by AAA.

· Talk to various mechanics in person and pick the one you get the best vibes from.

· Investigate typical pricing for the procedure you'll need, then call up different mechanics and ask what they charge.

Submit

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Which of the following is the best approach to seeking information on the Internet?

· If you can tell a website has a bias, assume that its content isn't true.

· Don't trust any information from online sources, because anybody can say anything on the Internet.

· Trust everything you read on websites with URLs that end in .edu, .gov, and .org, and don't trust what you read on websites with URLs that end in .com.

· Take advantage of the information the Internet has to offer, but approach everything you read with a critical eye.

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Which of the following situations would be the MOST appropriate use of a user-written reference source like Wikipedia?

· learning what you need to know about Andrew Jackson so you can write a research paper evaluating his presidency

· obtaining unbiased reporting of a current event as it's happening

· looking up symptoms of a medical condition to determine if you have a particular disease

· gathering some background information on what mycology is all about before diving into reading an academic article about the topic

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Based on its URL alone, you could safely assume that the website located at http://www.cdkc.edu/ is which of the following?

· an academic institution's website

· a commercial webpage

· a government website

· a nonprofit organization's website

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Practice: Everyone Else

How Good Is Milk for You?

Milk is a beverage that many Americans grew up with and think of as a nutritious, calcium-filled drink. However, there is an increasing number of arguments that milk not only doesn't live up to its healthy reputation, but may actually cause more harm than good. Whenever there's an issue with multiple sides, an ability to scrutinize and evaluate sources is invaluable if you want to develop an informed opinion.

Read the passage at the link below (or use this text version), and then answer the following questions.

Got Milk? Sweet Dreams

What claim about milk and sleep does this passage make?

· A protein that naturally occurs in milk may improve sleep quality and next-day alertness for insomniacs.

· Not drinking milk over time can impair memory and even endanger lives.

· If you drink milk before you go to bed, you will sleep better.

· Milk is the best source for a naturally occurring protein that may improve sleep quality and next-day alertness.

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Which of the following BEST describes the support this site provides for its claims?

· It provides no support at all for any of its claims.

· It cites an academic study about the benefits that drinking milk can have on sleep.

· It references a commercial webpage about the effect of sleep deprivation on teenagers.

· It cites an academic study about the dangers of sleep deprivation but does not provide support for any of its milk-related claims.

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The URL of this webpage would suggest that it is which of the following?

· an academic institution's website

· a commercial website

· a government website

· a nonprofit organization's website

·