Detecting Deception : Tools to Fight Fake News

This accessible text covers the most common issues with claims newsmakers use to try to shape the stories about them along with examples and chances to practice for yourself using real-life cases of deceptive communication.

Teaching fact checking and verification is an essential part of journalism education. When a confusing media environment makes it possible for interviewees to say things like “Truth is not truth” and “The president offered alternative facts,”students need to go beyond traditional reporting standards and be trained to consider the presentation of reality in deciding if a statement is misleading or patently false. Detecting Deception brings the concepts of logical argument taught in speech communication to supplement the verification techniques that are the stock and trade of any media professional. Pithy and practical, Sturgill draws from present day news examples to help students recognize the most common bad arguments people make. Detecting Deception is an essential tool for training future journalists how to build stories that recognize faulty arguments and hold their subjects to a higher standard.

Features:
-engagingly written by a reporter turned professor
-classic and current examples of logical fallacies from speeches, press conferences and reports
-each chapter will have two illustrations/cartoons to help students grasp concepts and easily remember faulty argument structures
-short and flexible for use as a supplement in the classroom or on the resource shelves of the newsroom