How do I know that the article you posted is fake news?

This is a follow up to last year’s breakthrough thinkpiece with a similar title. To help those with short attention spans, I have made a checklist. If your “news article” meets any one of these criteria, it may very well be fake news:

1. No dateline.
2. No byline or anonymous byline.
3. Assertions about experts or scientific papers with no named experts, no identified papers, and no links to data.
4. Claims that “everyone knows” something.
5. No quotations from identified sources.
6. No identified sources.
7. No links to related news stories (this is an indicator that the author is trying to keep you in their exclusive sphere of influence).
8. References to matters of public record, such as trials, public meetings, legislative sessions, without reference to the documents related to such matters.
9. Published by a source with no track record AT ALL as a news organization, particularly a source that cannot be identified by clicking on an “about” or “contact” link.

If any single one of these items is checked, the odds are good that your source article is garbage. If any single one of these items is checked, the odds are guaranteed that the source article is not, in fact, news, but opinion. Articles that are opinion articles may contain news, but they are not in fact news articles, because they bear a persuasive burden, and not an informational burden.

An article may therefore be fake news in two ways: one, it may be demonstrably fake; or two, it may not be news. Either way, I hope this makes it easier for you.

An important note: just because the author or editor of a news article is biased, does not make it fake news. It just means it’s biased.