This episode of “Is that a Fact?” is part one of a two-part episode marking the 10th anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman murdered 20 first graders and six adults. Soon after, conspiracy theories calling the massacre a hoax emerged. And they have persisted for a decade, thanks to amplification and profiteering by alt-Right media figure Alex Jones. Over the two episodes we explore the aftermath of Sandy Hook and how what seemed an aberration of untruths would instead be a bellwether for a shift in the country’s public discourse, where conspiracy theories are a common element of tragic events. We also discuss how victims’ families have fought back against the lies and harassment and brought about lasting change. In part one, Elizabeth Williamson, New York Times feature writer and author of the book, Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth, explains the incomprehensible need to deny reality and the lucrative market that exploits people’s vulnerability. “He is a sort of Typhoid Mary of the Sandy Hook hoax,” Williamson said of Jones, noting he “has been there at every stop along our descent as a nation down the rabbit hole.”Additional Reading: Elizabeth Williamson author page on NYTimes.comSandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for TruthElizabeth Williamson on TwitterIs that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America. Our host is Darragh Worland, our producer is Mike Webb, our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Busch.

In this episode, we interview Dr. Reece Jones, chair of the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and author of White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall, for an overview of the most enduring false narratives that have shaped our public conversations about immigration. We then speak to Roberto Suro, a professor of journalism and public policy and the associate director of the Price Center on Social Innovation at the University of Southern California. Suro helped us explore how the news media covers immigration and how that coverage helps shape people’s perception of the issue. Bear with us during this episode. At times you maybe ask yourself, how does this relate to the news media. But remember this: to be a critical consumer of news and information about immigration, you need to have an understanding of the policies that have shaped immigrations in our country’s history.On a previous episode, we explored the perception gap between Democrats and Republicans and of course the subject of immigration came up. It's a subject we wanted to continue to look at  because it's a hot button issue that will only become more heated as climate change alters migration patterns around the world in the years to come. Immigration will shape the cultural makeup of the US, future voting patterns, and whether America, a country that many would say is made stronger by its immigrant population, can continue to gain strength through balanced immigration policies. But it's also an issue rife with mis- and disinformation, false narratives, our theme for the season, some of which are even perpetuated in the news media and we wanted to dispel them by consulting experts armed with facts and lived experience.Is that a fact? is brought to you by the nonpartisan, non-profit News Literacy Project. For more information, go to newslit.org.Related links:White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall, Reece Jones, 2021"'Illegal, 'undocumented,' 'unauthorized': News media shift language on immigration", Pew Research Center, 2013"'illegal immigrant' no more," Associated Press, April 2, 2013"California Dreaming: The New Dynamism in Immigration Federalism and Opportunities for Inclusion in a Variegated Landscape," Roberto Suro, August 8, 2018"We see all immigrants as either legal or illegal. Big mistake." Roberto Suro, July 13, 2012Is that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America. Our host is Darragh Worland, our producer is Mike Webb, our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Busch.

In this episode we talk to two journalists covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine to help us better understand how disinformation and propaganda are obscuring, or outright contradicting, the facts, both within Russia and beyond its borders. Our first guest, Roman Anin, is a Pulitzer Prize-winner and founder and editor-in-chief of the Russian news portal iStories and a former investigative journalist for the recently shuttered Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Now living in exile and labeled a so-called “foreign agent” by the Russian government, Anin tells us why “propaganda is like radiation” and how hard it is for Russians today to access news from independent sources.After hearing about Putin’s 20-year campaign to restrict press freedom and control the media narrative, we talk to Elyse Samuels, a member of the The Washington Post visual forensics team, about her role in verifying images and videos for breaking and ongoing news events like the war in Ukraine. Is that a fact? is brought to you by the nonpartisan, non-profit News Literacy Project. For more information, go to newslit.org.Related links:Russian police raid home of prominent journalist Roman Anin, The Guardian'Our job is to save history': Russian journalist on exposing Putin's lies, ViceOpinion: Putin tolerated some critical voices in his 22-year assault on Russian media. His war in Ukraine ends even that, Committee to Protect JournalistsRussian attacks hit at least 9 Ukrainian medical facilities, visual evidence shows, The Washington PostSome survivors emerge from rubble of theater bombed by Russia, Ukranian officials say, The Washington PostIs that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America. Our host is Darragh Worland, our producer is Mike Webb, our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Busch.

In this episode, we set out to explore whether false narratives about the pandemic and the COVID-19 vaccines have overshadowed science or whether science has managed to hold its own, particularly in light of the politicization of the pandemic.Politics has certainly influenced who has chosen to get vaccinated. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “there continue to be differences in COVID-19 vaccination rates along partisan lines, a gap that has grown over time.” The Kaiser study showed that almost 53 percent of people who live in counties that voted for Biden were fully vaccinated compared to nearly 40 percent of people in counties that went to Trump. To better understand why people continue to reject overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the safety of the vaccines when compared to the dangers posed by the virus, we spoke to three people to learn more about the false narratives surrounding COVID-19 and the vaccines. Our first guest is Dr. Katherine J. Wu, a staff writer for The Atlantic who has a PhD in microbiology and immunobiology from Harvard University and has covered many different aspects of the coronavirus since the pandemic began. She tells us that when there is a crisis like this pandemic, it’s not unusual for misinformation to follow and spread confusion.Our second guest is Texas resident Tony Green, a Republican voter who has written about his first-hand experience with COVID-19. In June 2020, Green and his partner invited six family members to spend the weekend at their home in Dallas. At the time, Green was still referring to the pandemic as a “scamdemic” — wildly blown out of proportion. But over the course of that weekend, he developed symptoms of COVID-19 that would eventually land him and some his extended family in the hospital. In all, the virus spread to 14 members of his family and took the lives of two of them. (Starts at 18:25).Our third and final guest is U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy who tells us why he issued his “Confronting Health Misinformation” advisory and a special toolkit to help people learn how to navigate their way through all the false and misleading information not just about the virus and vaccines, but about all kinds of health-related topics. (Starts at 35:32).Is that a fact? is brought to you by the nonpartisan, non-profit News Literacy Project. For more information, go to newslit.org.Related links: Confronting Health Misinformation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Building a Health Information EnvironmentA Community Toolkit for Addressing Health Misinformation“What are we so afraid of?” Tony Green, as told to Saslow, Washington PostA harsh lesson in the reality of COVID-19, Tony Green, DallasVoiceCoronavirus reporting, by Katherine J. WuIs that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America. Our host is Darragh Worland, our producer is Mike Webb, our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Busch.

In this episode, we set out to explore whether the narrative of the country’s deep political polarization is fiction or reality. If you follow the news, you’ve probably heard that the country is deeply divided on political issues. Since 1992, no presidential candidate has received more than 53% of the popular vote. In recent years, Congress has routinely been deadlocked over some of the country’s most pressing issues. But what’s going on in the Capitol is not necessarily reflected in the hearts of many Americans. In fact, when you step back, it turns out most of us are more moderate than this narrative of extremes would suggest. For this episode, our first guest is U.S. director of More in Common, Dan Vallone, who discusses research into what his organization has dubbed the “perception gap”. Then, we talk to former Republican Member of Congress Charlie Dent about his experience on the Hill as a moderate representing the swing state of Pennsylvania. (Starts at 27:40).And finally, we conclude this episode in conversation with Charles Whitaker, the Dean of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, who calls out the news media for playing up the us-versus-them narrative of political polarization and shares what schools like his are doing to encourage their students to take a new approach. (Starts at 46:00).Is that a fact? is brought to you by the nonpartisan, non-profit News Literacy Project. For more information, go to newslit.org.The Perception Gap Quiz The Perception Gap findings“The US army veteran who's using his Harvard MBA to do good,” BusinessBecause, Sept. 24, 2019. “Charlie Dent’s War,” Politico Magazine, July 28, 2017 "Meet Charles Whitaker, Dean of the Medill School of Journalism," KUT 90.5, June 10, 2020Is that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America. Our host is Darragh Worland, our producer is Mike Webb, our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Busch.

For the second season of Is that a fact?, we’re exploring the origins of false narratives and the harm they have caused. We know that sharing misinformation is misleading and leaves people poorly informed, but we wanted to go deeper and explore how fictional information starts and then bubbles to the surface to misdirect the country’s civic and cultural discourse.For our first episode of the season, we take a look back at the myths that surround the September 11 attacks as the 20th anniversary of that day approaches. One of the core drivers of 9/11 misinformation was the film Loose Change, which our first guest, Esquire magazine correspondent John McDermott tells us, “remains probably the single most popular piece of conspiracy media ever created.” He explains how the film started a movement of conspiracy theorists that planted the seeds for today’s Qanon believers. Our second guest, James Meigs, former Popular Mechanics editor-in-chief, discusses how his team of journalists debunked many of the myths propagated by Loose Change even before the film came out. “What was really powerful about Loose Change wasn’t the specific claim,” said Meigs. “It was the overall mood of the film making… It had really cool music. It had all this slow motion. It had this very compelling narration, even if a lot of it didn’t make a lot of sense. It was quite powerful to watch.”Our final guest is Ann Van Hine whose husband was a firefighter killed the day of the terrorist attacks explained dealing with the anniversary in personal terms and explains what it’s like to come face to face with so-called Truthers while working as a docent at the 9/11 Tribute Museum.Is that a fact? is brought to you by the nonpartisan, non-profit News Literacy Project. For more information, go to newslit.org.Relevant interviews and links:A comprehensive history of Loose Change — and the seeds it planted in our politics, by John McDermott, Esquire MagazineDebunking 9/11 conspiracy theories, Popular MechanicsPieces falling: Navigating 9/11 with faith, family, and the FDNY, by Ann Van Hine9/11 debate: Loose Change filmmakers vs. Popular Mechanics editors of ‘Debunking 9/11 myths’Is that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America. Our host is Darragh Worland, our producer is Mike Webb, our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Busch.

In this special episode of Is that a fact? we explore why some people remain hesitant to get one of the COVID-19 vaccines, despite growing evidence that inoculation is the key to getting our lives and the economy back on track. We wanted to find out just how much misinformation might be to blame for that reluctance or if genuine concerns about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines might be giving people pause.To answer this question and more, we spoke with Dr. Erica Pan, the deputy director of the California Department of Public Health Center for Infectious Diseases and Brandy Zadrozny, a senior reporter for NBC News, who covers misinformation, extremism and the internet.Dr. Pan has served as interim health officer and director of the Division of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention at the Alameda County Public Health Department since 2011 and was director of public health emergency preparedness and response at the San Francisco Department of Public Health in 2011. She was also director of the Bioterrorism and Infectious Disease Emergencies Unit at the San Francisco Department of Public Health from 2004 to 2010 and was a medical epidemiologist trainee there from 2003 to 2004. Dr. Pan earned a Doctor of Medicine degree and a Master of Public Health degree from the Tufts University School of Medicine.Before joining NBC News, Zadrozny was a senior researcher and writer at The Daily Beast for five years, where she broke stories about Russia’s Internet Research Agency, as well as President Donald Trump and some of his associates, but she started out as a teacher and librarian. For more information on combating COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, visit newslit.org/coronavirus. There you’ll find links to reliable sources of information on the virus and vaccines, articles addressing the full spectrum of vaccine hesitancy, sites that debunk many of the myths surrounding the shots and the virus and more.Is that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America. Our host is Darragh Worland, our producer is Mike Webb, our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Busch.

This episode, which was recorded live on Zoom on Wednesday, November 18 with a panel of experts, is our season finale. Our host moderated a conversation with Enrique Acevedo of CBS’ “60 in 6,” Dr. Joan Donovan of the Shorenstein Center and Jane Lytvynenko of BuzzFeed News about how misinformation impacted the 2020 elections and what we can anticipate on the horizon. Acevedo is a correspondent on the new CBS production “60 in 6.” Before that, he was the Emmy-award winning anchor of Noticiero Univision late-night edition. Acevedo is also a member of the News Literacy Project’s (NLP) board of directors and the host of NLP’s Checkology® lesson on Practicing Quality Journalism. Dr. Donovan is the Research Director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. She is a leading expert in the field in examining online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns. Lytvynenko is a journalist with BuzzFeed News, based in Toronto, where she covers online misinformation. Her work investigates the spread of fake news, digital deception, and the rise of hyper-partisanship online. Is that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America. Our host is Darragh Worland, our producer is Mike Webb, our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Busch.

Our guest this week is Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior political scientist at RAND corporation, a nonprofit global public policy think tank. Our host spoke to Kavanagh about a phenomenon she and her colleagues have dubbed “Truth Decay.” We wanted to know why truth has been under assault in recent years, why Americans are increasingly rejecting the expertise of institutions we used to hold in high esteem and what we can do about it? Kavanagh is the director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program in the RAND Arroyo Center and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Her research focuses on U.S. defense strategy, international conflict and military interventions, disinformation, and the relationship between U.S. political and media institutions. She co-authored Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life.Coming up: Join us on November 18 at 5:30 p.m. EST for our final episode, which we’ll be recording live on Zoom, featuring Jane Lytvynenko of BuzzFeed News, Joan Donovan of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard and Enrique Acevedo of 60 Minutes’ new show 60 in 6. Our panel of experts will offer insights about how mis-and dis-information impacted the election. For details, visit newslit.org.Is that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America. Our host is Darragh Worland, our producer is Mike Webb, our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Busch.

Our guest this week is Cindy Otis, a former CIA analyst who is now the vice president for analysis for Alethea Group, where she leads disinformation investigations in the private sector. Our host spoke to Otis about why conspiracy theories have become more mainstream, what’s lending them such currency and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against them.Otis spent 10 years at the CIA as a military analyst, intelligence briefer, and a manager in the directorate of intelligence in both Democratic and Republican administrations. She is also the author of the newly released True or False: A CiA Analyst’s Guide to Identifying and Fighting Fake News, published by Macmillan.Coming up: Join us on November 18 at 5:30 p.m. EST for our final episode, which we’ll be recording live on Zoom. We’ll have a panel of experts offer insights about how mis-and dis-information impacted the election. For details, visit newslit.org.Is that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America. Our host is Darragh Worland, our producer is Mike Webb, our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Busch.