Fake News and News Bias

What bias might you bring to the selection of sources?

 An echo chamber can be defined as "a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an "enclosed" system, where different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented."

it is human nature to approach a topic with the intent of reinforcing and corroborating your position. It's always a good idea  to seek out opposing viewpoints ('argument sources') to strengthen (or refine) your own ideas.

A filter bubble "is a result of a personalized search in which a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user (such as location, past click behavior and search history). As a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles."

This is a danger of our brave new technological world. If you are aware of it, you can counter it.

• Washington Post Confirmed: Echo chambers exist on social media. So what do we do about them? 7/14/16
•  Echo Chambers on Facebook 
• TheGuardian Bursting the Facebook bubble: we asked voters on the left and right to swap feeds  11/16/16

Think Tanks, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Inter-governmental Organizations (IGOs) publish original research (often free on the Web) as well as provide useful up-to-date news on topics of global and national interest. Much of the content is deep within the respective sites, so a Google search may not bring up the best reports. Some non-profit organizations have strong political ties and may provide a biased view of a particular issue. While some think tanks self-identify on the political spectrum, designation of the bias of others is somewhat subjective.
 

The Think Tank Spectrum in Extra, a publication of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), categorizes some of the best-known Think Tanks as 'conservative', 'progressive', or 'centrist'. The 2015 Global Go To Think Tank Index (GGTTI), published annually by the University of Pennsylvania, ranks Think Tanks in various ways.