Follow a Claim Back to Its Source

A useful media-literacy habit: trace a claim one step farther back than the first article you see.

If a post says “a study found” something, look for the study itself—or a reliable summary that identifies it. Then ask:

• What did the researchers actually examine?
• Does the result support the headline’s wording, or a narrower claim?
• What important limit disappears as the claim gets repeated?

This isn’t a demand to read every paper. It’s a quick way to notice when a finding has been stretched in transit. A clear explanation should let you distinguish what the source reports from what later writers infer.

Sometimes the trail ends before the original evidence appears. That’s useful to know, too: the claim may be worth checking, but it isn’t verified just because it has been repeated.