Monday, September 21, 2020

Recognizing Fake News

 

Getting Wise to Fake News

Older adults are particularly vulnerable to misinformation on social media. But resources have emerged to help them learn to discern true from false.

Credit...Desiree Rios for The New York Times

Lindsay Dina wasn’t fooled by a photo on Facebook that supposedly showed masses of dolphins frolicking in the canals of Venice.

Ms. Dina, 75, ventured onto the social media platform roughly a decade ago, and has developed some savvy. She mostly shares information from established news organizations. She has deleted posts making bizarre claims about Hillary Clinton. She knows how to use Snopes.com, the fact-checking site.

Still, she said, “I’ve seen things and thought, ‘Well, that’s not true.’” But I wasn’t sure how to verify that it wasn’t.”

To Ms. Dina, a retiree in Easton, Conn., the internet can still feel like a hazardous place. Twice, online scammers have relieved her of small sums of money. She sometimes clicks on an apparent news story, she said, “but it turns out they’re selling some Medicare plan.”

A true-blue Democrat, she has passed along political stories from CNN and NBC but also posts from Impeach Trump, whose sponsoring organization has earned poor truthfulness ratings from PolitiFact.

So Ms. Dina was delighted to learn that MediaWise for Seniors, a project of the Poynter Institute, has offered free online courses to help older Americans detect and combat online misinformation. She enrolled and begins her training in a couple of weeks.

The MediaWise digital literacy program, which began in 2018 with funding from Google, initially focused on teenagers and college students. Recently, said Katy Byron, the program manager, “we chose to make a big demographic jump.”

“There was a desperate need to educate this older age group, not only because of the election but because of the coronavirus,” she said.

The online behavior of older Americans during the last presidential campaign alarmed scientists who study communications, politics and technology.

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Monday, September 14, 2020

Choosing Democracy: Teachers- California Prop 15 Will Tax the Rich for...

Choosing Democracy: Teachers- California Prop 15 Will Tax the Rich for...: Overturning Austerity 101: California’s Prop 15 Will Tax the Rich Fred Glass August 24, 2020 Labor Notes “We’ve got to be able to pass Schoo...

Silence of the Dems: Why Aren’t There More Prop. 15 Endorsements? Newsom Endorses

Silence of the Dems: Why Aren’t There More Prop. 15 Endorsements?: Many progressive electeds have ignored an initiative that would revise California’s constitution to assess commercial property at higher rates. Newsom Endorses.

Update:   Note: 

“I support Prop 15 because: it's a fair, phased-in and long-overdue reform to state tax policy, it will exempt small businesses and residential property owners, and it will fund essential services such as public schools and public safety.”

-- Gov. Gavin Newsom 

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

News from EPI › Six months into the recession and a 11.5 million jobs deficit remains

News from EPI › Six months into the recession and a 11.5 million jobs deficit remains: Today’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) gives us a status report on the labor market six months into the recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic. When the pandemic hit, health officials and policymakers urged businesses across the country to shutter their doors and mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. As a…

Sunday, September 6, 2020

Seminar Schedule : Fall 2020

Preliminary seminar schedule The Pandemic and the Economy Fall 2020. In place of lengthy readings, we are using on line videos. I request that you watch the following videos prior to each seminar. You will understand the in seminar discussion better if you have watched the videos. These are links. If you click on the link, it will take you directly to the video, 

 Sept. 10. The Virus. The Virus: What Went Wrong ?https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-virus/ 

Sept. 17. The Economy . Robert Reich. Brace Yourself for Trump’s Great Recession. 



 Oct. 1 State and Local Economy To be determined. 

 Oct 8, Covid and the Uprising To be determined 

 Oct. 16, The Elections.. To be determined. Your invitation and link. Duane ren- 04 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.