Introduction

Have you ever wondered about the news? Do you think they are actually telling the truth? Do you have any questions about the news that you've heard of, but you don't quite understand what it's talking about? That the authorities are keeping something from you? That the truth is out there, just beyond your grasp, laughing at you? People tell you stuff all the time, and expect you to just accept it. How are you supposed to sort out  what's true from what's false?

That's what this project is all about: finding the truth in a crazy world, so you never need to take what adults tell you at face value ever again.

Conspiracy Theory Presentation

Doing this conspiracy theory presentation was difficult. My partner and I decided to do the a conspiracy theory about Government Cloning. At first we were going to do two sides of the theory. One side showing that the theory is real and another side showing that the theory is fake. Doing further research, it was almost impossible to show any information about government cloning since it was so limited. Seeing as government cloning as a theory has already been seen on the internet, we just decided to stick with proving that it was real. At the time, since I saw some videos about government cloning, I did believe it, but not fully. Looking back, I'm not quite sure what to believe anymore considering that this project really made me question what's true and what's not true.

Dr. P's Hoax Website

HOAX WEBSITE

When Dr. P told us that we had to do research on a website, I didn't think much of it since that's all we pretty much do. But after seeing that the domain was weebly, I started to doubt it. The information did seem legit but I still wasn't fully convinced. Even before I started seeing if this website was fake, I already questioned Dr. P asking him if he did this, and he denied it. So, I looked at the about page and I found an image of the author. With the image, I did a google search and I the found out that the so called author was actually a famous actor. After I did this, I started to look into the articles that were also on the about page that the author claimed he had written. There were no direct links to the articles so I had to google them myself. When I googled them and clicked on the website they were on, the articles were written by a completely different person. With both of these signs showing that this website was fake, I asked Dr. P again and he told us the truth.

Hoax Story

Doing this hoax story was honestly not the best part of the project. I didn't have much interest in this mainly because I didn't find it interesting nor fun. It took me a while before I finally settled on a hoax story. I had other ideas for a hoax story but none of them seemed believable enough. When I finally settled on this idea, it was pretty easy to write since my partner, Dr. P, and I had already brainstormed ideas on what to include.

​

"My Story So Far" Piece

This piece is something that all students had to write when we realized that hoaxing the school wasn't going to work. Each student wrote their own version. I wrote my piece on how I felt about this project and what obstacles I faced.

Police Report

Writing a police report for a crime scene was one way to help us get a better understanding on seeing if sources are credible or not. The point of this was to find evidence that either show how Mr. Winston committed suicide or he was murdered. From this activity, it helped me get a little better at detecting what is credible and what is not.

"Biggest Threat Facing Journalism Today" Essay

To this day, I still believe that biased news stories and native advertising are two of the biggest threats journalism is facing right now. There are other threats facing journalism but I don't think any of them are as big as those two.

Ad Campaign for colette

For this ad campaign, we didn't really try to make is sound realistic. We honestly made it just for a good laugh. Making this ad was actually pretty fun because my group and I kept looking through pictures that would suit the headline. We went through many different photos before we finally decided on this one.

Fake News Olympics Story

I contributed to this fake story by writing the fake article with the help of one of my group mates. I also contributed by helping another group member add ads and a website on where the article came from. Writing this short fake was difficult for me because I couldn't figure out what to write about and what kind of information to include.

---

Final News Story & Baloney Detector

I decided to write my article about a lost continent being discovered since I saw some articles on twitter. There were articles saying that a lost continent was found, so I went with that but I added my own twist to it. You'd think writing a fake news story would be easy, right? For me, it was the complete opposite. It was hard for me to add fake information that flowed well with each other. Red Flags was the term we used to describe parts of an article that made it seem unreliable/fake. My article hasn't really changed much from my first draft. The only really drastic change was when I added more information about a discovery of another continent. Also, I added a few advertisements to make the article look legit. Before exhibition, we had a run through with 8th graders from the middle school. I was paired up with two 8th graders. I honestly didn't expect them to notice most of my red flags, so I was surprised when they did. Their comments were actually pretty harsh, but I didn't mind.

Red Flags

1. The author of the article is a screenwriter not a journalist
2. Geologist Anthony R. Barringer passed away before the discovery of the continent
3. Pangaea is not the supercontinent that broke up. Instead, it was Gondwana
4. The pyramid found underwater did not happen 6 years ago. There was no date specifying when it was found
5. Stellenbosch University is not the college that conducted a research
6. Lewis Ashwal is not a professor at Stellenbosch University
7. The headline includes an exclamation point

Exhibition

Our exhibition was setup to look like a cafe. Guests would come in, pick up a baloney detector, grab an article off the wall, and sit down and read it. When they were done reading, a student would come up to them and then they would talk to the guest and say if they noticed anything unusual. Our cafe name was Café Faux. To help setup for exhibition, I brought in food that would be served during exhibition. I also made a poster that explained the project but it didn't get printed so I wasn't able to showcase it. A memory from exhibition that I thought was cool was when Alexandra and Trinity played a video that they had been working on. I thought that the video was good and it was funny seeing Dr. P surprised since he had no idea they made a video. I don't think anybody read my article, so that sucks. If someone else was going to do this exhibition, I would tell them to not be afraid of going up to people and talking to them. I was nervous when going up to people and talking to them because I felt like I was going to stutter or say something wrong.