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Promote Clear, Accurate Information

Welcome to our collection of resources to help ensure that the decisions we make stand on firm, factual foundations.  How can we verify information that is crucial to understanding the public challenges we face?  How can we make sure that all people voicing their opinions about what should be done share a common factual knowledge base?

 

These resources offer a starting point by giving us some tools to critically evaluate what we think we know and what others profess to know.  If all parties recognize the same basic truths about a situation, they are much more likely to build solutions they all can understand and potentially accept.  We hope that, as you put these tools to work, you will create a common basis for decisions that will serve the public good where you live. 

 

A. Importance of Promoting Clear, Factual Information

 

 

 

 

B. Sites that seek to verify the factual basis of political and other public claims.

 

1. The best non-partisan fact-checking sites, according to Amrita Kahlid, at Daily Dot

a. Politifact politifact.com (The Poynter Institute)

b. FactCheck.org (Annenberg Public Policy Center) See: https://www.factcheck.org/our-process/

c. The Washington Post’s Fact Checker (blog by reporter Glen Kessler)

d.  OpenSecrets  (Center for Responsive Politics)

e. The Sunlight Foundation

f. Snopes.com

 

C. Guidelines for evaluating the content of what we read and hear

 

(Many resources exist. Try googling “how to critically evaluate public information”.)

 

1.  The CRAAP Test.  Video at www.library.qut.edu.au

2. The CRAAP TEST.  Video from CAN-Q Library). 

3. The CRAP Test Song (aka The CRAPpy Song) at https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=The+CRAP+Test+song+(aka+the+CRAPpy+Song)&docid=608045594663587664&mid=C280ABD714FEDDC8FB12C280ABD714FEDDC8FB12&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

 

D. Guidelines for conducting research, making claims, and composing reports about public matters.  

 

1. The BBC’s Guidelines for fair and accurate reporting.

https://www.bbc.com/editorialguidelines/guidelines/accuracy/guidelines 

Includes topics such as: Gathering Material; Accuracy of Live Content; Material from Third Parties; User-Generated Content; Material from the Internet and Social Media.

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