The Atlanta Press Club symposium on fake news Monday evening highlighted the importance of reliable news sources. 

The proliferation of false reports shared on Facebook and the genesis of spurious websites means that trusted news sources are more important than ever. 

Susanna Capelouto, senior editor at WABE in Atlanta, was tapped by the press club to facilitate the Media Literacy discussion. 

Capelouto aptly pointed out a distinction between trustworthy news reporting by bona fide news sources as juxtaposed to the purveyors of what has been called fake news. 

Legitimate news sources police the integrity of reports by what she called the Three Es: 

— Ethics

— Editors

— Experience 

Journalists are not credentialed or licensed by government and for good reason. 

As Capelouto said Monday, no one wants government deciding what is true and not true and what will be reported or not reported. 

Keith Herndon, journalism professor from the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia, agreed saying the media must operate as the Fourth Estate, holding government accountable and operating with complete independence. 

Journalists, unlike most bloggers, adhere to a code of ethics, generally either the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics or a similar code adopted by the news organization itself. The codes require journalists to seek truth and report it; do no harm; act independently and be accountable and transparent. 

Editors require reporters to adhere to journalistic rigors, fact-check and help to ensure reports are credible and reliable before publication. 

Both individual and institutional experience in gathering, writing and editing the news is critical to protecting the veracity of reports.

No such rigors are applied to social media sites and independent blogs.  

The intentional purveyors of fake news are slick and can be quite difficult to detect. 

A number of the sites have been identified by Politifact but are still shared on social media while new fake sites, posing as major news outlets, are cropping up at an alarming rate. 

For example ABCNews.com.co, may look like ABC News but it is an imposter. There are similar fake sites posing as the New York Times, the Washington Post and a host of other sites. 

Looking real and being real are not the same thing. 

The fact that newspapers, and other media, sometimes make mistakes does not make them fake news outlets. 

There is vast difference between making a mistake, whether it is a typo or a factual error, and intentionally spreading falsehoods and totally fabricated reports. 

Trustworthy media sources readily and quickly correct mistakes. 

Fake news sources just keep spreading false information. 

We encourage our readers to be discerning and double check the source before blindly sharing viral posts on social media. 

Here are a few questions you should ask about a link on social media:

— Is the story being reported by more than one news outlet? (exclusives are rare these days)

— Is the URL legit or does it contain questionable extensions? (.co instead of .com, for example)

— Does the story itself contain multiple sources? 

— Is the story a news story or an opinion column? 

No one wants to be duped by a fabricated report and no one wants to be made to look stupid to their social media friends by sharing a totally false, made-up, article. So, be careful and trust trustworthy news sources. 

We like what Capelouto said at the press club event Monday when she said there is “no such thing as ‘fake’ news.” 

Her point: It’s either news or it’s fake. 

It can’t be both.