Zimdar’s Classifications
Melissa Zimdars, Professor of Communication and Media at Merrimack College, has developed the following classifications for news sources:
Fake News: Sources that entirely fabricate information, disseminate deceptive content, or grossly distort actual news reports.
Satire: Sources that use humor, irony, exaggeration, ridicule, and false information to comment on current events.
Extreme Bias: Sources that come from a particular point of view and may rely on propaganda, decontextualized information, and opinions distorted as facts.
Conspiracy Theory: Sources that are well-known promoters of kooky conspiracy theories.
Rumor Mill: Sources that traffic in rumors, gossip, innuendo, and unverified claims.
State News: Sources in repressive states (countries) operating under government sanction.
Junk Science: Sources that promote pseudoscience, metaphysics, naturalistic fallacies, and other scientifically dubious claims.
Hate News: Sources that actively promote racism, misogyny, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination.
Clickbait: Sources that provide generally credible content, but use exaggerated, misleading, or questionable headlines, social media descriptions, and/or images.
Proceed with Caution: Sources that may be reliable but whose contents require further verification. Political: Sources that provide generally verifiable information in support of certain points of view or political orientations.
Credible: Sources that circulate news and information in a manner consistent with traditional and ethical practices in journalism (Remember: even credible sources sometimes rely on clickbait-style headlines or occasionally make mistakes. No news organization is perfect, which is why a healthy news diet consists of multiple sources of information).
Other Sources on Zimdar
Some of the sources on Zimdars’ list have posted critical responses to her classification of them.
