How accurate is the news? Apply the Thomas Jefferson Test

One simple trick to spot misinformation and check the accuracy of the news you read.

"Nothing can be believed which is seen in a newspaper...The real extent of this misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge of the lies of the day." — President Thomas Jefferson, in 1807

“Write about what you know” is up there with “Show, Don’t Tell” as evergreen advice for starting writers.

But “what you know” is just as valuable to readers. Especially to the readers of news.

If we’re living right, we all work day jobs, and we all have some outside interest. Something other than work or family. Some hobby or habit or rabbit hole that fills us up. Spend enough time on these hobbies and you become familiar. Double down and you become an expert.

It’s those stories, on your expertise, you should read the closest, when you read the news.

It was striking, to see President Jefferson use the word “misinformation” 200+ years ago. The quote ran in a 1927 book called “Main Currents in the History of American Journalism,” by Willard Bleyer.

There is nothing new under the sun, not even the way we talk about the news. Americans 200 years ago faced the same struggles we do: How much of the news should we believe? Should news stories be taken literally, seriously, or with a grain of salt?

Thomas Jefferson gave us the answer. He told us how to read the news.

When you read the news, look for the subject matter you know best. If it’s the national press, read stories about your town. If it’s the local paper, read stories about your neighborhood, or institutions you’re familiar with.

Look for false notes.

If a story insists that college football fans better be careful, because if they’re arrested on Labor Day Weekend, “they won’t see a judge until Tuesday,” but you know that county has weekend bond hearings, the report is inaccurate.

The news outlet didn’t know what was accurate, but printed the information anyway. For the sake of an OK line, they risked it all.

What’s revealed, in that story, is not a single inaccuracy, but an inaccurate approach to the news. Journalism is not printing a story, then crossing your fingers that it’s true. It’s printing “the best obtainable version of the truth,” as Bob Woodward says to this day.

“Write what you know” is good advice to writers, but “print only what you know to be true” is top 2 in the reporting rulebook. And it ain’t No. 2. This is what’s meant by “Don’t Assume.”

When reporters print other than what they know to be true — not what they guess or imagine or remember to be true, but what they know — they open the door to inaccuracy.

If a news outlet would disregard accuracy to spice up a story about college football fans, what else are they guessing on? That careless, cavalier approach is likely multiplied many times over, if you were to read the entire newspaper.

Should you take the news literally? Seriously? With a grain of salt? You tell me. Start by reading the stories you know best. How accurate are they?

The next step? Report your findings. See something, say something.

Make special note of the inaccuracies. Email the reporter. Share the truth on social media, and show your friends where the news departed from it. You’ll be doing a public service.

Even watchdogs need a watchdog.