Archive
Media Literacy: every article
22 articles, newest first.
23 September 202622 pieces
- Media LiteracyHow to scam-proof your parents without insulting themA callback rule, a family password, and the payment types no real agency ever asks for, plus how to bring it up without sounding condescending.
- Media LiteracyThe Hang Up and Call Back Rule That Stops Most ScamsYour parents don't need a list of every con going around. They need one habit, two questions, and a family rule about money.
- Media LiteracyHow to Tell Which Outlets Actually Own Their MistakesCorrections pages are the cheapest honesty test in media, and most readers never open one. Five minutes of digging tells you who to trust.
- Media LiteracyHow to tell news from opinion before you share itThree different promises to the reader wear the same font. The tells are in the URL, the verbs, and what survives when you cross out the sourcing.
- Media LiteracyHow to teach a teenager to spot a sales pitchThe tell isn't the hashtag. It's the discount code with the creator's own name in it, and your kid can learn to find it in ten seconds.
- Media LiteracyWhat Thirty Days Off the News Actually Teaches YouA news fast isn't a detox. Run it like a test, keep the receipts, and you'll learn more about your sources in a month than in a year of reading them.
- Media LiteracyTalk About the News at Dinner Without Blowing Up the TableA working method for checking a claim in real time, arguing about ideas instead of people, and still passing the potatoes afterward.
- Media LiteracyTeach Your Kid to Check It Before They Believe ItA five-minute drill that turns a screenshot, a clip or a poll into something your kid can verify without you in the room.
- Media LiteracyHow to Tell When the Chatbot Is Making It UpA confident answer isn't a checked one. Six moves that catch an invented citation before it ends up in your email, your brief or your kid's homework.
- Media LiteracyWhen an Anonymous Source Is Worth Believing, and When It Isn'tA working method for reading stories built on unnamed sources, from the sourcing line to the 72-hour rule.
- Media LiteracyFind the bill, the ruling or the study before you argue about itAlmost every document people fight about online is free, numbered and sitting on a government website. Here's how to pull it in under five minutes.
- Media LiteracyHow to Tell When an Article Is Actually an AdSponsored content is built to look like reporting. Five checks, ten seconds, and the disguise falls off every time.
- Media LiteracyHow to read a science headline without getting playedFive minutes and a few blunt questions will tell you whether that study actually says what the headline claims it says.
- Media LiteracyHow to Build a News Diet That Survives an ArgumentEvery outlet has a thumb on the scale. Learn where the thumb goes, and you can read anybody and still come out with the facts.
- Media LiteracyHow to spot spin in a story you already agree withLoaded words, buried qualifiers and headlines the article never supports — a ninety-second method for reading anything with your eyes open.
- Media LiteracyHow to Check a Photo in 60 Seconds With Reverse Image SearchMost viral photo hoaxes aren't fake pictures. They're real pictures with the wrong caption, and you can catch them before you hit share.
- Media LiteracyThe four questions an editor asks before a story runsWho's talking, what actually happened, how they know it, and what got left out. Run any story through those four and most of the spin falls off.
- Media LiteracyHow to Spot a Number That's Lying to YouAverages, percentages and missing denominators are how honest-looking data gets used to sell you a conclusion. Five questions catch almost all of it.
- Media LiteracyHow to read a poll before you share itSample size, margin of error and who actually got asked - the four minutes of checking that separates a real finding from a headline.
- Media LiteracyHow to spot an AI image before you hit shareThe hands-and-teeth tricks are dying. What still works is boring, fast, and takes about sixty seconds.
- Media LiteracyCheck a Viral Claim in Five Minutes Before You Hit ShareA repeatable method for the screenshot in your feed right now: find the original, check the date, test the image, read the actual number.
- Media LiteracyHow Your Feed Decides What You See, and How to Take It BackThe ranking machine isn't lying to you. It's just not trying to tell you the truth. Here's the audit that puts you back in charge of it.