There’s been a lot of national conversation about “fake news”; discerning fact from fiction, and; taking opinion as fact. Pew Research has conducted an extensive study on the topic earlier this year. The results were eyebrow-raising. Among the takeaways:
- Younger American (under 50) were better at telling the difference.
- About a quarter of Americans overall could accurately identify factual statements (26%) and about a third could identify opinion statements (35%).
- Affiliation is a factor in misclassifying a fact from an opinion that supports a person’s political position.
While the study was national in participant scope, we wondered what those results might look like on the local level for Fremont County. In taking the quiz that was used (evaluating 10 statements as either fact or opinion) we gained an appreciation for the difficulty of the task. See how you do on this completely anonymous quiz (~3 mins):
>> TAKE THE QUIZ <<