Is that a fact?
The News Literacy Project
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"Is that a fact?" is produced by the non-partisan national education non-profit the News Literacy Project. It seeks to inform listeners about news literacy issues that affect their lives through informative conversations with experts working to combat misinformation.
Available episodes
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Dec 7, 2022
Sandy Hook at 10: Tragedy, conspiracy theories and justice (Part 1)
This episode of “Is that a Fact?” is part one of a two-part episode marking the 10th anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman murdered 20 first graders and six adults. Soon after, conspiracy theories calling the massacre a hoax emerged. And they have persisted for a decade, thanks to amplification and profiteering by alt-Right media figure Alex Jones.
Over the two episodes we explore the aftermath of Sandy Hook and how what seemed an aberration of untruths would instead be a bellwether for a shift in the country’s public discourse, where conspiracy theories are a common element of tragic events. We also discuss how victims’ families have fought back against the lies and harassment and brought about lasting change.
In part one, Elizabeth Williamson, New York Times feature writer and author of the book, Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth, explains the incomprehensible need to deny reality and the lucrative market that exploits people’s vulnerability. “He is a sort of Typhoid Mary of the Sandy Hook hoax,” Williamson said of Jones, noting he “has been there at every stop along our descent as a nation down the rabbit hole.”
Additional Reading:
* Elizabeth Williamson author page on NYTimes.com
* Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth
* Elizabeth Williamson on Twitter
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Dec 7, 2022
Sandy Hook at 10: Tragedy, conspiracy theories and justice (Part 2)
This episode of “Is that a Fact?” is part two of a two-part episode marking the 10th anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman murdered 20 first graders and six adults. If you haven’t listened to part one, in which we interview New York Times feature writer and author of the book, Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth, we highly recommend that you do that first.
In part two, we speak with Lenny Pozner, father of Noah, the youngest victim at Sandy Hook. Pozner knew early on that the hoaxers’ movement would be widespread, lasting and harmful. So, he chose to fight back on behalf of his child and other victims. “Noah’s story will always need to be told because there’ll always be someone misusing it,” he said. “I knew that I needed to do everything that I’m able to do to help debunk, to help clarify, to tell my story as best as I can, which really is just telling Noah’s story.”
Over the two episodes we explore the aftermath of Sandy Hook and how what seemed an aberration of untruths would instead be a bellwether for a shift in the country’s public discourse, where conspiracy theories are a common element of tragic events. We also discuss how victims’ families have fought back against the lies and harassment and brought about lasting change.
Additional Reading:
* HONR Network
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May 4, 2022
Are journalists getting the immigration story right?
In this episode, we interview Dr. Reece Jones, chair of the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and author of White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall, for an overview of the most enduring false narratives that have shaped our public conversations about immigration.
We then speak to Roberto Suro, a professor of journalism and public policy and the associate director of the Price Center on Social Innovation at the University of Southern California. Suro helped us explore how the news media covers immigration and how that coverage helps shape people’s perception of the issue.
Bear with us during this episode. At times you maybe ask yourself, how does this relate to the news media. But remember this: to be a critical consumer of news and information about immigration, you need to have an understanding of the policies that have shaped immigrations in our country’s history.
On a previous episode, we explored the perception gap between Democrats and Republicans and of course the subject of immigration came up. It's a subject we wanted to continue to look at because it's a hot button issue that will only become more heated as climate change alters migration patterns around the world in the years to come. Immigration will shape the cultural makeup of the US, future voting patterns, and whether America, a country that many would say is made stronger by its immigrant population, can continue to gain strength through balanced immigration policies. But it's also an issue rife with mis- and disinformation, false narratives, our theme for the season, some of which are even perpetuated in the news media and we wanted to dispel them by consulting experts armed with facts and lived experience.
Is that a fact? is brought to you by the nonpartisan, non-profit News Literacy Project. For more information, go to newslit.org.
*Related links:*
* White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall, Reece Jones, 2021
* "'Illegal, 'undocumented,' 'unauthorized': News media shift language on immigration", Pew Research Center, 2013
* "'illegal immigrant' no more," Associated Press, April 2, 2013
* "California Dreaming: The New Dynamism in Immigration Federalism and Opportunities for Inclusion in a Variegated Landscape," Roberto Suro, August 8, 2018
* "We see all immigrants as either legal or illegal. Big mistake." Roberto Suro, July 13, 2012
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Apr 20, 2022
Disinformation and Russia’s War in Ukraine
In this episode we talk to two journalists covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine to help us better understand how disinformation and propaganda are obscuring, or outright contradicting, the facts, both within Russia and beyond its borders.
Our first guest, Roman Anin, is a Pulitzer Prize-winner and founder and editor-in-chief of the Russian news portal iStories and a former investigative journalist for the recently shuttered Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Now living in exile and labeled a so-called “foreign agent” by the Russian government, Anin tells us why “propaganda is like radiation” and how hard it is for Russians today to access news from independent sources.
After hearing about Putin’s 20-year campaign to restrict press freedom and control the media narrative, we talk to Elyse Samuels, a member of the The Washington Post visual forensics team, about her role in verifying images and videos for breaking and ongoing news events like the war in Ukraine.
Is that a fact? is brought to you by the nonpartisan, non-profit News Literacy Project. For more information, go to newslit.org.
*Related links:*
* Russian police raid home of prominent journalist Roman Anin, The Guardian
* 'Our job is to save history': Russian journalist on exposing Putin's lies, Vice
* Opinion: Putin tolerated some critical voices in his 22-year assault on Russian media. His war in Ukraine ends even that, Committee to Protect Journalists
* Russian attacks hit at least 9 Ukrainian medical facilities, visual evidence shows, The Washington Post
* Some survivors emerge from rubble of theater bombed by Russia, Ukranian officials say, The Washington Post
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Dec 16, 2021
The politicization of the pandemic
In this episode, we set out to explore whether false narratives about the pandemic and the COVID-19 vaccines have overshadowed science or whether science has managed to hold its own, particularly in light of the politicization of the pandemic.
Politics has certainly influenced who has chosen to get vaccinated. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “there continue to be differences in COVID-19 vaccination rates along partisan lines, a gap that has grown over time.” The Kaiser study showed that almost 53 percent of people who live in counties that voted for Biden were fully vaccinated compared to nearly 40 percent of people in counties that went to Trump.
To better understand why people continue to reject overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the safety of the vaccines when compared to the dangers posed by the virus, we spoke to three people to learn more about the false narratives surrounding COVID-19 and the vaccines. Our first guest is Dr. Katherine J. Wu, a staff writer for The Atlantic who has a PhD in microbiology and immunobiology from Harvard University and has covered many different aspects of the coronavirus since the pandemic began. She tells us that when there is a crisis like this pandemic, it’s not unusual for misinformation to follow and spread confusion.
Our second guest is Texas resident Tony Green, a Republican voter who has written about his first-hand experience with COVID-19. In June 2020, Green and his partner invited six family members to spend the weekend at their home in Dallas. At the time, Green was still referring to the pandemic as a “scamdemic” — wildly blown out of proportion. But over the course of that weekend, he developed symptoms of COVID-19 that would eventually land him and some his extended family in the hospital. In all, the virus spread to 14 members of his family and took the lives of two of them. (Starts at 18:25).
Our third and final guest is U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy who tells us why he issued his “Confronting Health Misinformation” advisory and a special toolkit to help people learn how to navigate their way through all the false and misleading information not just about the virus and vaccines, but about all kinds of health-related topics. (Starts at 35:32).
Is that a fact? is brought to you by the nonpartisan, non-profit News Literacy Project. For more information, go to newslit.org.
*Related links:*
* Confronting Health Misinformation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Building a Health Information Environment
* A Community Toolkit for Addressing Health Misinformation
* “What are we so afraid of?” Tony Green, as told to Saslow, Washington Post
* A harsh lesson in the reality of COVID-19, Tony Green, DallasVoice
* Coronavirus reporting, by Katherine J. Wu
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Oct 14, 2021
Perception or reality: Just how divided is America, really?
In this episode, we set out to explore whether the narrative of the country’s deep political polarization is fiction or reality. If you follow the news, you’ve probably heard that the country is deeply divided on political issues. Since 1992, no presidential candidate has received more than 53% of the popular vote. In recent years, Congress has routinely been deadlocked over some of the country’s most pressing issues. But what’s going on in the Capitol is not necessarily reflected in the hearts of many Americans. In fact, when you step back, it turns out most of us are more moderate than this narrative of extremes would suggest.
For this episode, our first guest is U.S. director of More in Common, Dan Vallone, who discusses research into what his organization has dubbed the “perception gap”.
Then, we talk to former Republican Member of Congress Charlie Dent about his experience on the Hill as a moderate representing the swing state of Pennsylvania. (Starts at 27:40).
And finally, we conclude this episode in conversation with Charles Whitaker, the Dean of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, who calls out the news media for playing up the us-versus-them narrative of political polarization and shares what schools like his are doing to encourage their students to take a new approach. (Starts at 46:00).
Is that a fact? is brought to you by the nonpartisan, non-profit News Literacy Project. For more information, go to newslit.org.
* The Perception Gap Quiz
* The Perception Gap findings
* “The US army veteran who's using his Harvard MBA to do good,” BusinessBecause, Sept. 24, 2019.
* “Charlie Dent’s War,” Politico Magazine, July 28, 2017
* "Meet Charles Whitaker, Dean of the Medill School of Journalism," KUT 90.5, June 10, 2020
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Sep 8, 2021
How 9/11 truthers planted the seeds for QAnon
For the second season of Is that a fact?, we’re exploring the origins of false narratives and the harm they have caused. We know that sharing misinformation is misleading and leaves people poorly informed, but we wanted to go deeper and explore how fictional information starts and then bubbles to the surface to misdirect the country’s civic and cultural discourse.
For our first episode of the season, we take a look back at the myths that surround the September 11 attacks as the 20th anniversary of that day approaches. One of the core drivers of 9/11 misinformation was the film Loose Change, which our first guest, Esquire magazine correspondent John McDermott tells us, “remains probably the single most popular piece of conspiracy media ever created.” He explains how the film started a movement of conspiracy theorists that planted the seeds for today’s Qanon believers.
Our second guest, James Meigs, former Popular Mechanics editor-in-chief, discusses how his team of journalists debunked many of the myths propagated by Loose Change even before the film came out. “What was really powerful about Loose Change wasn’t the specific claim,” said Meigs. “It was the overall mood of the film making… It had really cool music. It had all this slow motion. It had this very compelling narration, even if a lot of it didn’t make a lot of sense. It was quite powerful to watch.”
Our final guest is Ann Van Hine whose husband was a firefighter killed the day of the terrorist attacks explained dealing with the anniversary in personal terms and explains what it’s like to come face to face with so-called Truthers while working as a docent at the 9/11 Tribute Museum.
Is that a fact? is brought to you by the nonpartisan, non-profit News Literacy Project. For more information, go to newslit.org.
*Relevant interviews and links:*
* A comprehensive history of Loose Change — and the seeds it planted in our politics, by John McDermott, Esquire Magazine
* Debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories, Popular Mechanics
* Pieces falling: Navigating 9/11 with faith, family, and the FDNY, by Ann Van Hine
* 9/11 debate: Loose Change filmmakers vs. Popular Mechanics editors of ‘Debunking 9/11 myths’
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May 19, 2021
Special: Is misinformation to blame for vaccine hesitancy?
In this special episode of Is that a fact? we explore why some people remain hesitant to get one of the COVID-19 vaccines, despite growing evidence that inoculation is the key to getting our lives and the economy back on track. We wanted to find out just how much misinformation might be to blame for that reluctance or if genuine concerns about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines might be giving people pause.
To answer this question and more, we spoke with Dr. Erica Pan, the deputy director of the California Department of Public Health Center for Infectious Diseases and Brandy Zadrozny, a senior reporter for NBC News, who covers misinformation, extremism and the internet.
Dr. Pan has served as interim health officer and director of the Division of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention at the Alameda County Public Health Department since 2011 and was director of public health emergency preparedness and response at the San Francisco Department of Public Health in 2011. She was also director of the Bioterrorism and Infectious Disease Emergencies Unit at the San Francisco Department of Public Health from 2004 to 2010 and was a medical epidemiologist trainee there from 2003 to 2004. Dr. Pan earned a Doctor of Medicine degree and a Master of Public Health degree from the Tufts University School of Medicine.
Before joining NBC News, Zadrozny was a senior researcher and writer at The Daily Beast for five years, where she broke stories about Russia’s Internet Research Agency, as well as President Donald Trump and some of his associates, but she started out as a teacher and librarian.
For more information on combating COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, visit newslit.org/coronavirus. There you’ll find links to reliable sources of information on the virus and vaccines, articles addressing the full spectrum of vaccine hesitancy, sites that debunk many of the myths surrounding the shots and the virus and more.
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Nov 25, 2020
How much did misinformation impact the election?
This episode, which was recorded live on Zoom on Wednesday, November 18 with a panel of experts, is our season finale. Our host moderated a conversation with Enrique Acevedo of CBS’ “60 in 6,” Dr. Joan Donovan of the Shorenstein Center and Jane Lytvynenko of BuzzFeed News about how misinformation impacted the 2020 elections and what we can anticipate on the horizon.
Acevedo is a correspondent on the new CBS production “60 in 6.” Before that, he was the Emmy-award winning anchor of Noticiero Univision late-night edition. Acevedo is also a member of the News Literacy Project’s (NLP) board of directors and the host of NLP’s Checkology® lesson on Practicing Quality Journalism. Dr. Donovan is the Research Director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. She is a leading expert in the field in examining online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns. Lytvynenko is a journalist with BuzzFeed News, based in Toronto, where she covers online misinformation. Her work investigates the spread of fake news, digital deception, and the rise of hyper-partisanship online.
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Nov 11, 2020
Truth Decay: Why Americans are turning away from facts
Our guest this week is Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior political scientist at RAND corporation, a nonprofit global public policy think tank. Our host spoke to Kavanagh about a phenomenon she and her colleagues have dubbed “Truth Decay.” We wanted to know why truth has been under assault in recent years, why Americans are increasingly rejecting the expertise of institutions we used to hold in high esteem and what we can do about it?
Kavanagh is the director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program in the RAND Arroyo Center and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Her research focuses on U.S. defense strategy, international conflict and military interventions, disinformation, and the relationship between U.S. political and media institutions. She co-authored Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life.
Coming up: Join us on November 18 at 5:30 p.m. EST for our final episode, which we’ll be recording live on Zoom, featuring Jane Lytvynenko of BuzzFeed News, Joan Donovan of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard and Enrique Acevedo of 60 Minutes’ new show 60 in 6. Our panel of experts will offer insights about how mis-and dis-information impacted the election. For details, visit newslit.org.
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Nov 2, 2020
The mainstreaming of conspiracy theories
Our guest this week is Cindy Otis, a former CIA analyst who is now the vice president for analysis for Alethea Group, where she leads disinformation investigations in the private sector. Our host spoke to Otis about why conspiracy theories have become more mainstream, what’s lending them such currency and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against them.
Otis spent 10 years at the CIA as a military analyst, intelligence briefer, and a manager in the directorate of intelligence in both Democratic and Republican administrations. She is also the author of the newly released True or False: A CiA Analyst’s Guide to Identifying and Fighting Fake News, published by Macmillan.
Coming up: Join us on November 18 at 5:30 p.m. EST for our final episode, which we’ll be recording live on Zoom. We’ll have a panel of experts offer insights about how mis-and dis-information impacted the election. For details, visit newslit.org.
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Oct 28, 2020
Why democracy falters without local news
Our guest this week is Gilbert Bailon, the editor-in-chief of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Our host spoke to Bailon about the importance of local news to American democracy. Local news organizations have been gutted in recent years, leaving communities across the country with little to no coverage and stripping them of their watchdogs. What are the consequences for American democracy and why should everyday Americans care?
Bailon joined the Post-Dispatch as editorial page editor in 2007 and then in 2012, became the paper’s editor. Before that, he was executive director of the Dallas Morning News and the founding editor and publisher of Al Dia, a daily Spanish-language newspaper owned by the Dallas Morning News. He has served as president of the American Society of News Editors, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and Unity Journalists of Color.
By some estimates, 1,300 communities across the country now have no local news outlet at all, leaving them with no independen…
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Oct 21, 2020
Who are journalism's new gatekeepers?
Our guest this week is Rebecca Aguilar, a multiple Emmy award-winning reporter who recently became the first Latina president-elect of the Society of Professional Journalists. Our host spoke to Aguilar about how the gatekeeping role of journalists has been altered by the internet and social media, what’s been lost, but also what’s been gained. They also discussed the need for greater diversity in American newsrooms and what needs to be done to achieve it.
In her 39 years in journalism Aguilar has worked in Toledo, Chicago, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Dallas. Today she is a freelance reporter and consultant. She is also the social media columnist for Latina Style Magazine, a national publication. When Rebecca is not working on a story, she is leading two of the largest Latina groups on Facebook. “Latinas in Journalism” has close to 2,000 Latina journalists who have found a place online to network, share advice and find work. Rebecca also created “Wis…
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Oct 14, 2020
Here's what we know about Russia's disinformation campaigns
Our guest this week is Deen Freelon, an associate professor at the Hussman school of Journalism and Media at Univesrity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Our host spoke to Freelon about how foreign adversaries, and particularly the Internet Research Agency in Russia, are using social media platforms against us. We explore how foreign governments wage disinformation campaigns against us, who they target and why. Are they succeeding? And what can we do as news and information consumers to avoid falling for this nefarious form of misinformation?
Freelon is known for his coding and computational methods to extract, preprocess and analyze large sets of data. He has researched how misinformation is spread and what people can do to prevent the spread of false information. Freelon has published over 30 peer reviewed journal articles and contributed extensive research to the Knight Foundation. In the past few years, Freelon has done substantial analyses about the impact of state-sponsored disinf…
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Oct 7, 2020
Kara Swisher on why Facebook is a threat to democracy
Our guest is Kara Swisher, one of the premiere tech columnists in the country. Our host spoke to Swisher about how social media platforms have affected our ability to talk to one another. Have platforms like Facebook contributed to the rise of misinformation. Do social media platforms have a responsibility to police certain content? Swisher has been a long-time critic of the power of tech companies, their use of personal data and the industry’s lack of accountability. In our interview she said, “We are cheap dates to the data companies.”
Swisher has been chronicling the rise of Silicon Valley since the early ‘90s. In 2003, Swisher launched the D: All things Digital Conference with Walt Mossberg, and later co-founded the website Recode with him, which was acquired by Vox in 2015. Swisher has written for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, and she is currently an editor-at-large for New York Media and a contributor to the New York Times, where she recently launched…
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Sep 30, 2020
Can journalism survive an authoritarian ruler?
Within journalism circles, Maria Ressa is a hero. She is a veteran journalist, as well as the co-founder, executive editor and CEO of Rappler , a popular online news website in the Philippines. Ressa is celebrated for her critical coverage of President Rodrigo Duterte and for enduring legal challenges to her site’s reporting.
She has experienced first-hand how hard it is for journalists to hold the line against an authoritarian leader when press freedoms are threatened. In June, Ressa and her former Rappler colleague were found guilty of “cyber libel.” She is currently fighting the government’s move to revoke Rappler’s license and faces up to 100 years in prison for her work as a journalist.
Ressa is the subject of a recent PBS documentary, “A Thousand Cuts,” about the fight between the government and the press in the Philippines. She was named Time Magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year, was among its 100 Most Influential People of 2019, and has also been named one of Ti…
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Sep 22, 2020
How can the press serve our fractured country?
Michael Luo is the editor of the newyorker.com. We spoke to him about a piece he wrote on The Hutchins Commission which was formed during World War II to decide how the press could serve democracy during a period of intense political strife and distrust in the media. At the time tribalism was fueling division in the country, and the press was seen as further sowing discord. The piece was written for The New Yorker’s series on “The Future of Democracy” We spoke about the role of journalism in American democracy, the need for viewpoint diversity in media, and the future of media.
This is episode two of our ten-part series, Is that a fact? In each episode we’ll bring in an expert to discuss an aspect of our current information environment that is threatening the promise of American democracy. Visit our website for more information and find additional links on our guests.
Additional credit: Zoe Denckla provided research assistance and Miranda Shafer provided production assistance…
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Sep 14, 2020
Can democracy survive the rise of misinformation?
Today, a core element of American democracy — access to reliable information — is threatened. How did this happen? And how can American democracy survive the impact of misinformation? Our guest is Brendan Nyhan. He is a contributor to The Upshot at the New York Times and a co-founder at Bright Line Watch, a group that monitors the status of American democracy. He is a professor of government at Dartmouth College.
Is that a fact? is brought to you by the nonpartisan, non-profit News Literacy Project. In each episode of this 10-part series, we’ll bring in an expert to discuss an aspect of our current information environment that is threatening the promise of American democracy. We’ll also ask our experts to share some solutions, so you can become a more informed voter.
For more information about the News Literacy Project, go to newslit.org.
*Relevant interviews and links:*
* The Dartmouth, 2/5/2020 Discussing coverage of Trump’s impeachment trials
* Albright Institute a…
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Sep 5, 2020
Trailer
Welcome to Is that a fact?, a new podcast brought to you by the News Literacy Project.
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