Information Gaps in the Digital Age

Sites like Facebook and Twitter have received criticism since the election for their role in disseminating "fake news" stories without verification and without posting disclaimers.  Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged the problem and claimed that he and other developers are "working on it."

We surveyed a random sample of undergraduate students at the University of Maryland and asked them where they looked to get their news.  Here's what we found:

As you can see, almost 80 percent of respondents cited Facebook as a news source. Without any way to verify accuracy and considering Facebook's advanced algorithm that orders what a user sees in order of its pre-determined "relevance" to their past views, we deem this is as quite concerning.

Here are a few free, easy-to-navigate verifiable websites that can better suit your news-gathering needs. They are also available on mobile devices: 

http://www.theskimm.com/

http://www.npr.org/

http://www.politico.com/