True or False: A CIA Analyst's Guide to Spotting Fake News

Fake news is a major problem in our world today, with very real consequences. It's insidious. It's invasive. It's corrosive.

How can we spot fake news? Where does fake news come from? How can we fight against it? Those are the questions that are addressed in this book.

Author Cindy L. Otis opens her book by sharing stories of fake news from the past, including the fake news generated by the Jack the Ripper case and fake news told during the reign of Ramses II in Egypt. It's comforting to know that fake news isn't just a modern day phenomenon. Her information from the recent past about the efforts of cigarette companies to thwart the warnings arising from scientific studies on smoking is a reminder to all of us how money can entice others to lie and even kill.

The most important part of the book, for me, is the last half of the book. Here Otis discusses the biases we all have, ways to help identify your own biases, techniques to examine the news we read carefully, as well as looking closely at the characteristics of fake news along with the characteristics of fake photos, inaccurate polls, and doctored photos and videos. Otis includes some helpful exercises that help us look carefully at news.

I challenge us all to read this book and others like it and to think more deeply about the information we are taking in and sharing from social media, traditional news sources, and even conversations with others.