If you're like most of us, you've been fooled by an inaccurate news report and maybe

even shared it on social media.

It's not a good look, and more to the point, it perpetuates a problem that only seems

to grow as electronic media becomes ever easier to share, not to mention easy for anyone

to create, and to say whatever they want.

Not a spot fake news is coming up right now, UnSkeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid.

I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

How to Spot Fake News

Fake news is a term that didn't really exist more than a few years ago.

The concept, however, is as old as news.

Faking away the obvious political association, fake news can refer to anything from propaganda

to spin to deliberate disinformation.

There are always people out there trying to push some idea, and sometimes they're very

good at it, and they disguise it well to look like genuine, unbiased reporting.

But that's actually pretty rare.

More often, fake news is either ham-handed or so thoroughly tailored to fit into some

echo chamber that it's indistinguishable.

Today we're going to have a look at some ways to spot it and flush it out.

There's not always a super hard-line distinction between what's completely made up and what's

being highly spin-doctored to appeal to those of a particular worldview.

It's important to recognize that nearly every piece of news has at least some amount

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