How to do good fact check online

 

1. Go straight to the source. Yesterday, while fact checking a story on new type of neurons discovered behind the retina, we read the university press release, and other articles about the discovery. Then, we clicked on the journal where the paper was published. Then, we clicked on the supplementary information submitted by the study authors. That is where we realised that the study was conducted on mice, not humans. Nowhere, not in the press release, not in the articles, nowhere was it mentioned that the study is only at the first stage (mice). That is how painful fact check is and how obfuscating even supposedly scientific articles are.
2. When reporting on indices, ranks, etc., go and check what is the methodology of the study or how is the index compiled. Don’t trust any rank or index until you understand how the number was derived.
3. When reading about a contentious issue, always read publications that give both sides of the story. For Lakshadweep, the major news channels reported that the locals are being tormented by the administration. But when I read the official records and the small publications that had dared to publish the other side of the story (and Quora), i realised that the real story was actually quite different. For Delhi’s pollution, we blame the parali or the crackers, but Delhi has as many as 3 thermal power plants within its territory and arguably Asia’s largest informal e waste recycling industry which burns the phones in open air. No one tells you that.
4. Trust nothing that is “proposed” or “will be done”. That is not news. That is fortune telling. After it is done and operational, it becomes news.