How to Fact-Check History

November 3, 2020
Has lesson plan

Meet Joseph Hogan, Retro Report’s fact-checker who explains what methods and processes he employs to verify the information in our stories.

The flood of information spilling across social networks into classrooms has led to cries for more “fact-checking,” but what exactly is that? How do you do it – especially if you’re trying to check something that happened decades ago?

In this video, Joe Hogan, head of fact-checking at Retro Report, answers those questions, and explains why fact-checking is a needed skill today, whether you’re a making a video, writing a news story, or just trying to stay informed.

“History is full of lessons,” Joe says. “And to really understand those lessons, you have to understand what actually happened.”

Joe’s job is to make sure that happens. He verifies every claim made in a Retro Report video to ensure it is accurate; if it isn’t, it’s corrected. And he pursues his craft with the skills of a prosecutor making a case in court.

Related: Visit our How to Fact-Check History Lesson Plan Don’t leave fact-checking to the fact-checkers by Joseph Hogan

For teachers
  • Read transcript
  • Producer: Sianne Garlick
  • Editor: Cullen Golden
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For Educators

Subjects
Media and News Literacy U.S. History
Topics
1980s 1990s Civil War Domestic Policy Social Media
Introduction

This lesson and its accompanying seven-minute video introduce students to a professional fact-checker, who describes the methods and processes he employs to verify information that appears in news stories. The video explains which claims can be fact-checked, and why some sources are more reliable than others. How do fact-checkers engage in analysis of contemporary and historical claims? How do we distinguish between “bad facts” and “bad narratives” when critiquing media sources? Examine the tools that fact-checkers use to identify and interrogate claims, and put those skills into practice.

Background reading
▼

The flood of information spilling across social networks into classrooms has led to cries for more “fact-checking,” but what exactly is that? How do you do it – especially if you’re trying to check something that happened decades ago?

In this video, Joe Hogan, head of fact-checking at Retro Report, answers those questions, and explains why fact-checking is a needed skill today, whether you’re making a video, writing a news story, or just trying to stay informed.

“History is full of lessons,” Joe says. “And to really understand those lessons, you have to understand what actually happened.”

Joe’s job is to make sure that happens. He verifies every claim made in a Retro Report video to ensure it is accurate; if it isn’t, it’s corrected. And he pursues his craft with the skills of a prosecutor making a case in court.

If someone claims that Donald Trump was sworn in as president on Thursday, January 17th, 2017, wearing a blue tie, Joe checks every claim in that sentence: the month, the day, the year, the ceremony, that Trump was in fact there, and was being sworn in as president. And, yes, even the color of his tie.

Joe evaluates every claim in every Retro Report that way, whether it’s made by the producer writing the script, an expert commenting in an interview, or a date on a piece of historical footage.

And if that footage claims it’s showing a picture of the Detroit skyline in 1956, Joe will examine other pictures and footage to make sure that was in fact how the Detroit skyline really looked in 1956.

Fact-checking historical events can pose a challenge, especially at Retro Report, which often uses archival material to context current events, so they can be better understood. But every claim, old or new, still must be checked.

To do that, Joe tries to get as close to an event as possible. He reads newspaper accounts from the time, talks to people who were there, consults reliable histories, even talks to historians themselves, to learn as much as he can about what happened and why. All that gives him a bank of expertise that helps him understand the history around an event and verify the claims being made about it.

This may seem like a lot of work but there’s a lot at stake.

In 1995, a researcher at Princeton University predicted that by 2000, the U.S. would soon be overrun by “super- predators,” incorrigible criminals, many of them young black males.

The media picked up on the idea, and soon states across the country were passing laws to crack down on juvenile offenders,

Unfortunately, the researcher later admitted his predictions were dead wrong, but by then the damage was done.

“The idea of the super-predator lasted,” Joe says. “And led to a lot of very stringent laws and policies being passed that ultimately contributed to our current very big problem of mass incarceration.”

Lesson Plan 1: Intro to Fact-Checking
Intro to Fact-Checking
Intro to Fact-Checking
Use the Internet to Check the Internet
Overview
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Students will learn about the methods professional news organizations and historians use to check facts and how that applies to their own work.

Objectives
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Students will:

  • Define a claim of fact and distinguish it from an opinion.
  • Describe the process of identifying claims and fact-checking.
  • Describe the types of sources that fact-checkers use in verifying claims.
  • Practice the skills of identifying claims and evaluating sources of information necessary to fact-check.
Essential questions
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  • What do we distinguish between claims of fact and opinion?
  • What methods do fact-checkers use to verify claims?
  • What is the difference between “bad facts” and “bad narratives” when it comes to analyzing claims?
Additional resources
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Standards
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  • Common Core State Standards
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.1:Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2:Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.8:Assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author’s claims.
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.9:Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.
  • National Council for the Social Studies C3 Framework
    • D1.2.9-12. Explain points of agreement and disagreement experts have about interpretations and applications of disciplinary concepts and ideas associated with a compelling question.
    • D1.4.9-12.Explain how supporting questions contribute to an inquiry and how, through engaging source work, new compelling and supporting questions emerge.
    • D1.5.9-12.Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration multiple points of view represented in the sources, the types of sources available, and the potential uses of the sources.
    • D2.His.10.9-12.Detect possible limitations in various kinds of historical evidence and differing secondary interpretations.
    • D2.His.12.9-12.Use questions generated about multiple historical sources to pursue further inquiry and investigate additional sources.
    • D3.1.9-12.Gather relevant information from multiple sources representing a wide range of views while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection.
    • D4.4.9-12.Critique the use of claims and evidence in arguments for credibility.
    • D3.3.9-12.Identify evidence that draws information directly and substantively from multiple sources to detect inconsistencies in evidence in order to revise or strengthen claims.
Lesson Plan 2: Media Literacy and the Lost Cause Narrative
Media Literacy and the Lost Cause Narrative
Media Literacy and the Lost Cause Narrative
Use the Internet to Check the Internet
Overview
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What happens when history is written not by the victors, but the losers? After the Civil War, the United States began the difficult process of reuniting and healing after four years of brutal conflict and centuries of Black enslavement. During this process of Reconstruction, the question arose for former Confederates of how to remember the Civil War and its causes. In an attempt to justify their actions, white Southerners created a historical narrative of the Civil War known as the Lost Cause. This romanticized version of historical events has since been largely discredited by historians. Nonetheless, the impact of this collective regional memory remains. In this activity, students will apply a fact-checking process to the six key tenets of the Lost Cause narrative.

Objectives
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Students will

  • Apply the fact-checking process to the six Lost Cause tenets to assess their veracity.
  • Be able to identify false claims, bad narratives, and inaccuracies within historical arguments
Essential questions
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  • What are some methods to fact-check ideologies?
  • What are the tenets of the Lost Cause?
Additional resources
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Standards
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College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies

  • D1.3.9-12. Explain points of agreement and disagreement experts have about interpretations and applications of disciplinary concepts and ideas associated with a supporting question. 
  • D1.4.9-12. Explain how supporting questions contribute to an inquiry and how, through engaging source work, new compelling and supporting questions emerge
  • D2.Civ.5.9-12. Evaluate citizens’ and institutions’ effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national, and/or international level.
  • D2.Civ.8.9-12. Evaluate social and political systems in different contexts, times, and places, that promote civic virtues and enact democratic principles. 
  • D2.His.1.9-12. Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts.
  • D2.His.2.9-12. Analyze change and continuity in historical eras.
  • D2.His.5.9-12. Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives.
  • D2.His.12.9-12. Use questions generated about multiple historical sources to pursue further inquiry and investigate additional sources.
  • D2.His.16.9-12. Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past.