ST. LOUIS, MO (KMOX) - "One of the things that make it easy to share things that aren't legitimate is when we are really emotionally involved," says Julie Smith, author of Master the Media. Smith was a guest on St. Louis Talks on KMOX, explaining that sometimes images are recycled, or used to spread false information.
"When the pandemic started I saw this thing on Facebook that said Queen Elizabeth had tested positive for COVID," says Smith. "But no one else was talking about it. So that's an example. If the Queen had tested positive it would have been on CNN, and NBC, CBS and ABC." Smith says if something is really a legitimate news event, legitimate news sources will have coverage.
She warns about videos or photos being reused. "A lot of these videos can be recycled from other events and be reframed as current." With photos, Smith says you can do a Google image search to see if similar images exist. It can be more difficult to find the original date and source of videos. One option she offers is to take a screenshot of the video and do an image search for that.
Smith is co-host of the podcast "What the Media?!!?" produced by KMOX News. Click here for more information on the KMOX Media Literacy Project.
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