title: Detecting Bull: How To Identify Biased, Fake and Junk Journalism In the Digital Age
author:  John H. McManus 
description: A former journalist and communication professor, John McManus writes and lectures about changes in news media and their impact on democracy. His 1994 book, Market-Driven Journalism: Let the Citizen Beware? won the annual research award from the Society of Professional Journalists. So did his 2009 college textbook, Detecting Bull: How to Identify Bias and Junk Journalism in Print, Broadcast and on the Wild Web. In 2000, he founded GradeTheNews.org. Using Consumer Reports as a model, the project scientifically sampled the most popular newspapers and newscasts in the San Francisco Bay Area and rated them head-to-head on seven yardsticks of journalism quality. Grade the News was funded by the Gerbode, Knight and Ford Foundations and received both national and regional awards. Mr. McManus earned his B.A. at Holy Cross, his M.A. at Michigan, and his Ph.D. at Stanford.
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  “This volume provides a great entry point into the vast and growing
  psychological literature on one of the defining problems of the early 21st
  century –
  
  fake news and its dissemination. The chapters by leading scientists first
  focus on how (false) information spreads online and then examine the cognitive
  processes involved in accepting and sharing (false) information. The volume
  concludes by reviewing some of the available countermeasures. Anyone new to
  this area will find much here to satisfy their curiosity.”
  
  _–_ **Stephan Lewandowsky** , _Cognitive Science,_
  
  _University of Bristol, UK_
  
  “Fake news is a serious problem for politics, for science, for journalism, for
  consumers, and, really, for all of us. We now live in a world where fact and
  fiction are intentionally blurred by people who hope to deceive us. In this
  tremendous collection, four scientists have gathered together some of the
  finest minds to help us understand the problem, and to guide our 