Train Your Brain to SIFT
CAN YOU TRUST IT?
Story 2: Prada Paperclips
This tweet claims that the luxury fashion brand Prada has released a paperclip that costs $185. Look carefully at the post. There could be some clues that this Twitter user shared the article without reading it first. To avoid doing the same, stop and investigate.
Investigate the Source
The post links to an article from “The Zoe Report.” Do you know the source? If not, go to Wikipedia and perform a quick search. Practising these investigation skills are important, no matter how big or small the news story.
The search doesn’t return a Wikipedia page for The Zoe Report, which happens sometimes—especially with blogs or smaller news sites. Now what?
Find Trusted Coverage
When you don’t recognize a source, it’s helpful to find trusted coverage of the topic.
Type “Prada paperclip” into Google News and see what happens.
A quick search returns multiple news stories with many trusted sources at the top of the results. Click through and read one of the stories.
It’s clear from this story that the tweet was misleading—the paperclip is actually a money clip. Has your opinion of the original post changed with more context?