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Southwest’s librarians uncover the real facts in fake news webinar

| By Diana Fedinec
Whitney Snodgrass presented a section on identifying misinformation during the Evaluating Information in the News webinar.

Whitney Snodgrass presented a section on identifying misinformation during the Evaluating Information in the News webinar.

Can you spot fake news? In this era of misinformation, it is getting harder to differentiate between what is fact and what is fiction. To combat today’s media illiteracy, Southwest’s Infonet Library is now offering a free virtual webinar on finding misinformation in the news.

Presented by Reference and Instruction Librarian Whitney Snodgrass and Public Services Librarian Gloria Hayden, Evaluating Information in the News equips the average internet user with tools and resources to identify falsehoods or mistruths emanating from news outlets and social media. The live remote webinar outlines the different types of misinformation (i.e., fabricated content or satire) and offers basic techniques to develop fact-checking skills. It addresses the dangers misinformation poses to our society and the need for readers to navigate media safely.

“Media literacy is a valuable skill to have when you consider how complicated and complex our information environment is,” Hayden said.  “Anybody can create and spread misinformation, so we have a responsibility as media consumers and citizens to make sure we are not contributing to that spread of misinformation,” she said.

The webinar was offered twice in fall semester 2020 via MS Teams with some attendees attending twice. “We were glad to see the level of interest in this webinar,” Snodgrass said. “With such a chaotic year around the world, many of the participants felt this information would be both relevant and timely.”

Hayden said the library will offer at least two more remote sessions during spring semester 2021.  Students, employees and the public are invited to attend, so stay tuned for updates. 

For more information about the webinar, please contact the Infonet Library at libraryinfo@southwest.tn.edu.