Transcript: Are these articles trustworthy quiz
Question 1:
Headline: Anti-Vaccine Japan Has World’s Lowest Child Death Rate & Highest Life Expectancy
URL: https://healingoracle.ch/2018/08/08/anti-vaccine-japan-highest-life-expectancy/
Is this information trustworthy?
a) Yes;
b) No;
c) Maybe.
Answer:
b) No
Feedback:
The source of this article, healthyoracle.ch, has a “very low” reliability rating on the Iffy Index of Unreliable Sources, which provides information on credibility from the fact-checking organisation Media Bias/Fact Check. If you decide to try and find better coverage, you’ll also find that many other fact-checking sites have debunked this article.
Source:
Golding B (2023) Iffy index of unreliable sources, Iffy.news website, accessed 17 May 2023. https://iffy.news/index/
Question 2:
Headline: The food supplement that ruined my liver
URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45971416
Is this information trustworthy?
a) Yes;
b) No;
c) Maybe.
Answer:
a) Yes
Feedback:
The BBC is generally a well-respected source of news. If you do some online searching to find better coverage, you will also find that the fact-checking site Health Feedback has reviewed this article and deemed it “highly credible”, stating that the article’s “explanation of how green tea supplements could cause problems is well explained and detailed” while “it is careful to balance this out with information about the general lack of harm from green tea consumption” (Teoh 2019).
Source:
Teoh F (28 Jan 2019) ‘The most popular health articles of 2018, a scientific credibility review’, Health Feedback, accessed 17 May 2023. https://healthfeedback.org/the-most-popular-health-articles-of-2018-a-scientific-credibility-review
Question 3:
Headline: Hand Dryers Spread Bacteria So Dramatically That Scientists Think They’re A Public Health Threat
Is this information trustworthy?
a) Yes;
b) No;
c) Maybe.
Answer:
a) Yes
Feedback:
Investigating the source with Wikipedia leads to some unflattering information about the founder of the site but does not give much information about its current credibility. Finding better coverage, however, by searching for ‘hand dryers spreading germs”, leads to an article from the Harvard Medical School health blog. This source, in turn, links to multiple peer-reviewed journal articles that reached the same conclusion: hand dryers do spread bacteria.
Sources:
Ross, J (11 May 2018) ‘The bacterial horror of hot-air hand dryers’, Harvard Health Blog, accessed 17 May 2023. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823
Wikimedia Foundation (2023) Elise Andrew, Wikipedia website, accessed 17 May 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elise_Andrew
Question 4:
Headline: Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong
URL: https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-you-know-about-obesity-is-wrong/
Is this information trustworthy?
a) Yes;
b) No;
c) Maybe.
Answer:
c) Maybe
Feedback:
According to Wikipedia, HuffPost has been the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for journalism as well as a site that posts user-generated content from unpaid bloggers. Searching for better coverage reveals that this particular article has been the subject of some online debate. An analysis of the article by several scientists found that it failed to “place the (accurately-cited) scientific findings in the appropriate context”, overstated scientific confidence, and displayed some bias (Teoh 2018). The reviewers agreed, however, that other aspects of the article made it an important piece of social commentary.
Sources:
Teoh F (2018) ‘Scientists discuss the widely shared Huffington Post article “Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong”’, Health Feedback, accessed 17 May 2023. https://healthfeedback.org/evaluation/scientists-discuss-widely-shared-huffington-post-article-everything-you-know-obesity-wrong-michael-hobbes/
Wikimedia Foundation (2023) HuffPost, Wikipedia website, accessed 17 May 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HuffPost
