In the era of social media and competitive news, sites struggle to attract more attention than others. Some people have taken it upon themselves to compile a list and stratagem to identify sites that are misleading or provide ‘fake’ news.

Assistant Professor of Communications at Merrimack in Massachusetts, Melissa Zimdars, released a Google doc that provides a means by which people can identify a fake news site (False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and/or Satirical “News” Sources and the list of sites). The problem with this list is that Zimdars also lists many slanted and political news sites which, while sourced appropriately, well written, and verifiable information, are mainly biased in one way or another. Yet of websites that Zimdars gathers her news from, as written in the False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and/or Satirical “News” Sources, Washington Post, New York Times, and other news sources who themselves are biased, mostly left-leaning websites.

The aspect of banning or qualifying a website or news source as being false or misleading solely due to their political persuasion is ridiculous. It is important to understand that while a news source might agree with a certain viewpoint, one must be aware that it will be necessary to use multiple sources to verify a story.

It’s also important to be aware of the bias and false narrative of mainstream media sources like CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, and others. These news sources have the distinct problem of needing to bring in as many viewers as possible in order to push out their competition. Occasionally, this ends with fake or overblown news stories. If the 2016 election is to be analyzed from the point of view of the mainstream media, Hillary Clinton had a sure shot for the White House. Yet, Donald Trump won with all of the media telling their viewers he had no chance.

Pick and choose your news sources. Just be ready to verify their stats.