I'm Anthony Mason.

Hello.

I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

Speeding.

Just deport.

Welcome to World News from Al Jazira.

Maynooth.

You are fake news, sir.

In this lesson, we present seven steps to help you judge the quality of news reporting.

Step one.

Main points.

Be able to recognize and restate the main points of the story on intelligent news.

Consumer asks, what are the facts and how are they presented?

Step two.

Evidence.

Examine the evidence.

How has the reporter confirmed the evidence?

Is there video you can trust?

Is there a paper trail?

Documents to prove what happened.

Step three sources consider the sources of the story.

How many people did the reporter speak with?

Are they named or not identified in the story?

Step four.

Openness.

What is the transparency level?

The level of openness in the news organization.

Where did they get their information?

Step five.

Knowledge of subjects.

Is there something to provide context such as background information for history?

Does the reporter have a command of the subject of the report?

Step six.

The five W's are important pieces of information missing.

Does the report answered the questions?

What happened?

Where when and why did it happen?

Who was involved?

Step seven.

Self examination Are you open to fairness as a news consumer?

You must know yourself.

Do you have opinions or beliefs that could influence your judgment?

Perhaps Step seven is the most important of the seven steps.

Ask yourself.

Are you more likely to believe a story if it confirms your preexisting beliefs?

That is called confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is a sort of blindness that leads news consumers to seek out information they want to be true.

A smart news consumer seeks out information from multiple sources weighing the reputation of each source and comparing their coverage.

Using the's seven steps, a reader or listener can decide the quality and truthfulness of news reports.

In our final lesson, Way will consider journalistic responsibility in the age of social media.