Crash Course Navigating Digital Information

I began writing about this video series just about a year ago as we were staring down at more than a year of sniping, mis- and disinformation online connected to the current political contest. I was hoping that the funny geniuses at Crash Course would come up with a convenient recipe for how to traverse this difficult information situation. If someone like moi is frustrated at all of the steps needed to discern the News from all of the Noise on the Internet and social media, what hope is there for those unwilling to do more than repost when something hits their feeds that they like?

So over the past year I reposted the ten episodes of Crash Course: Navigating Digital Information with my own observations, experiences and frustrations. Reviewing the material I had to smile when it appeared that professional fact-checkers were proven to be best at weeding out false information above all the other groups tested (including university professors…). I spent several weeks as an intern at The LA Weekly newspaper as a fact-checker. But it was a much different world in 1991 and all I remember is making sure that the names of persons quoted or referenced were spelled correctly and getting yelled at over the phone when I mispronounced some European composer’s name, or something like that. “Who, what, where and when,” kind’a important to get those bits of the story correct (they didn’t trust us interns with the “why” bit… that was the reporters and editors domain). Alas, there is no simple single-step way to guarantee that said info is legitimate. But it’s important enough that everyone should take the time needed to watch this series of short videos and adapt a cautious attitude about what’s presented as news or facts. Trust me, there are no “alternative facts,” just different interpretations of events and no one has the monopoly on Truth, No One. But, it’s also irresponsible to look at the situation and give up, that there’s no point in trying.

That was part of the method behind Hitler’s Big Lie, that if you overwhelm them with information, regardless of the “quality” of the information, eventually they’ll give up and believe anything you tell them. This is how we often get to this “they’re all the same” response when dealing with our current political situations. And it doesn’t help that we really want Reality to fit into easy to understand little categories of something either being BAD or GOOD. Sorry, things tend to be a bit more complicated than that. So, please check out the following ten episodes designed to help you not get fooled by stuff online while you swim through all that passes by as “information.” Also, because this is a blog, the episodes are listed in reverse order, so you need to begin with the ones on the bottom and move up to view the episodes in order. Sorry about that and Enjoy.