Lateral reading and fake news

There is a new term being popularized by educators. The term is lateral reading. In a way, lateral reading is a response to a term popularized by politicians – fake news. Lateral reading proposes that in an era where what you read from what one might assume were responsible sources seems off or weird, one should open another tab in your browser and search on the claim. This is not the only way to fact check (an older term for the same thing), but it concrete and should make sense to anyone familiar with using an Internet browser.

I came across this post from Slate that offers an example of the results of lateral reading or fact checking expressed as a web page. It lists both claims made and what can be found via a simple search to demonstrate that the claim is false. Now, it is true than many of what turn out to be false claims used as examples were authored by the present President, but if you need examples of claims that can easily be shown to be false he offers an easy source to mine.

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