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Some of NewsForge’s cast are still learning. When you teach them, YOU learn it best — catch what they get wrong, then quiz them.
Teach Verify
You be the teacher — Verify is still learning. Helping Verify figure it out is the practice. (Verify's progress stays on this device; nothing is sent anywhere.)
🎓 In a minute you'll be the teacher. Get ready to teach Verify: lateral reading.
To judge a website, leave it and see what other sources say about it. A site's own 'About' page is it describing itself.
You've helped them one at a time. The real understanding is how the ideas CONNECT — teach that next.
Source (source-quality — who would KNOW this best, and who has a stake?) ×Verify (verification and lateral reading — SIFT: stop, investigate, find, trace; open four tabs)
A slick website claims to be a medical authority. Why do Source and Verify say to leave its page to judge it?
Source then says: “The best way to judge a website is to trust what it says about itself on its own about-page.” — is that right?
The link: lateral reading is the method that answers the source-quality question.
Leave its page and see what others say to judge it.
Tilt (bias and perspective — every story has a frame; name it, structural not partisan) ×Frame (headline craft — a headline is a summary, not a hook; counter clickbait)
Two outlets cover the same event with very different headlines. How do Tilt and Frame connect?
Tilt then says: “Headlines are always neutral summaries that never reveal any slant or framing.” — is that right?
The link: the headline is where the framing shows first and strongest.
Read the headline, and you read the tilt.
Capstone — work one story at the news desk together
Three news-literacy moves. Bring in the cast member for each.
Ask who would actually know this. Who?
Who do you bring in?
Open other tabs to check it. Who?
Who do you bring in?
Name the frame the story leans on. Who?
Who do you bring in?
The synthesis: ask who would know, verify laterally, and name the frame — how a careful reader works a story.
Source, verify, and name the frame — news, read well.
