Research - All the Things: Trace to the Original

Most stuff you see on the web is not original reporting or research. Instead, it is often commentary on the re-reporting of re-reporting on some original story or piece of research.

Very often by the time a story finds you on the web it has been altered so much that it presents a radically wrong version of an event or a piece of research. The person you are reading usually did no original reporting, made no phone calls to check facts, and often barely skimmed the original story before writing up their blog post, thinkpiece, hot take, or re-reported news item. And so they either get things wrong by mistake, or, in some cases, intentionally mislead.

Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. Usually, the original reporting, research, or photo is available on the web. By going to the original reporting or research source (or finding a high quality secondary source that did the hard work of verification) you can get a story that is more complete, or a research finding that is more accurate.