Workshop Helps Determine Website Credibility In The Age Of Fake News

Determining credibility of a website is an often difficult task in today’s political climate.

Merisa Petrich is a librarian at Holman Library and a former reporter for various news outlets around the state.

Petrich spent a career as a reporter for the Tacoma Komo, Peninsula Gateway, and the Joint Base Lewis McChord Guardian. She knows the ins and outs of how to delve into a pile of information and come out the other end with reliable intel.

There was a workshop held by Petrich on Feb. 15 to help students determine the credibility of a website when doing research. 

Petrich wanted to stress the importance of knowing how to spot false information, and although she understands that people now have a good sense that there is bad information on the Internet, many are quick to take the first piece of information they see. 

“A lot of the time it’s quicker to take the first information and not do the digging to get the best information,” Petrich said.

A few examples of things one can do to determine reliability of the websites they use are to evaluate the credentials of a website, who wrote it, why they wrote it, biases that could have influenced the information, where the author got their information, the appearance of a website and a quick background search about the website, and the actual information given.

A lot of the times, websites that have sub-par information will try to be vague about who wrote the information and their expertise on the subject.

For example, there was a prime example of this with a website titled MartinLutherKing.org, which ended up being run and operated by a Neo-Nazi organization.

Students, in their education, are often encouraged to trust .gov, .org, or .edu, but according to Petrich, this information was better in the past, and that now there exist many more shortcuts anyone can take to access these websites and take away the immediate authority of them. 

The author of a website and their motive behind creating it are also a factor in determining credibility. For example, a website written by an accredited organization or member of the community is going to be more reliable than a website written by someone with no credentials. This can also help establish biases toward a certain topic. 

The author themselves must have a credible source or documentation for the information they are providing on their site. A doctor with outstanding credentials who writes a website but cites his only source as Wikipedia may be questionable, even though the doctor may be well accredited. They are not strongly supported by their sources, which means a student must rely on someone’s ability to relay information on their site. 

Petrich recommends to always do a quick Google about the sites credibility, the author, and to delve a little into the sources the author used when creating the website.

“This isn’t groundbreaking shocking information,” Petrich said. “What’s important is forming that habit, even when it’s not convenient, even when you’re in a hurry, doing that extra bit of checking is very useful.”

Reliable information is important. Being informed prevents students from becoming part of the problem of unreliable information on the Internet. A lot of people are misinformed and therefore fall victim to a lot of issues such as scams and false information, which lurk around every corner of the web.

A great example of this is is the DHMO.org hoax. There is a website about DHMO, or dihydrogen monoxide, which raves about the lethal effects and the thousands of DHMO-related deaths that occur every year.

It turns out, however, that dihydrogen monoxide is an uncommon name for water. People actually donated money to help fight Dihydrogen monoxide and it’s “lethal effects” because the .org website instructed them and convinced readers that it was a deadly chemical compound.

Petrich would like students and faculty to understand the vital importance of staying informed about this topic because staying informed, even if it’s not as quick as taking the first information available, is vital to functioning in a society that is riddled with unreliable sources.