TEXT: WE HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS ABOUT TRUST.
Young men and women: How do we know which people and organisations we can trust? And which we can’t?
TEXT: AND WHAT ABOUT
Young men and women: When it comes to news and information what is a trusted source and how do we find one?
Mukul Devichand: Do a bit of searching, put on your detective hat, you know – perform the checks you can perform and have a look at the site or the web address that is sharing this story is it one you recognise, that you’ve seen before that you might trust. Has this person got a track record, have they written things before, do they seem to be legit.
Rachel Schraer: When you’re working out whether a source is trustworthy you should be asking yourself – is this person likely to know the answer to the question? Is this their field of expertise? So you might ask a doctor to diagnose you with an illness but you probably wouldn’t want them to mend your car or recommend you a smart phone.
Amol Rajan: Let me tell you how I decide whether or not I can trust a news source - first of all have they shown a commitment to accuracy over a long period of time? Have they consistently got things right? And the second thing which is related is; do they admit when they get things wrong? You know, if you put your hand up and say sorry I made an error, there are factual mistakes in the piece we published then people like me are much more likely to believe you when you say that you got things right.
Young woman: Isn’t who we trust just a simple case of working out who is right and who is wrong?
Amol Rajan: If only it was that simple. The truth is that we all bring our own prejudices, our own world view our own opinions to bear on the information that’s presented to us. So the question of who you trust is often a question about who you really are. And my recommendation, for what it’s worth, is you try as hard as you can to make your views informed by the facts rather than the other way around.
TEXT: SO REMEMBER, DO YOUR RESEARCH, DO YOU KNOW THE NEWS SOURCE, WHAT IS THEIR TRACK RECORD? AND ASK YOURSELF, ARE YOU SHARING SOMETHING BECAUSE IT’S REALLY TRUE, OR JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT IT TO BE?