Lateral Reading
When most people want to know whether a website is trustworthy, they do what feels intuitive: they read the website more carefully. They look at the About page. They read a few more articles. They check whether the content sounds authoritative. Researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington tested this approach against a completely different strategy used by professional fact-checkers — and found that the professional approach was dramatically more effective. That strategy is called lateral reading.
Lateral reading means opening new tabs and searching for what other sources say about a website or claim, rather than reading deeper into the source itself. Instead of asking 'does this website present itself as credible?', you ask 'what do independent sources say about this website?' A website can say anything about itself. What it cannot easily control is what investigative journalists, academic researchers, other news organizations, and fact-checkers have written about it.
Vertical reading: going deeper into a source — reading more pages, studying the design, examining the About section. This is what most readers do instinctively, and it is surprisingly ineffective at detecting misinformation. Lateral reading: opening new tabs and searching for external information about the source. This is what professional fact-checkers do, and studies show it is far more accurate and often faster.
The Stanford Research
Researchers at Stanford's History Education Group ran a series of studies comparing how professional fact-checkers, historians, and college students evaluated websites and online claims. Fact-checkers were the most accurate group — not because they read more carefully, but because they left websites almost immediately to search for external context. A fact-checker encountering an unfamiliar organization would spend a few seconds on the home page, then immediately open new tabs to search: 'Who funds this organization?' 'What have other journalists reported about it?' 'Has it been criticized or praised by credible parties?'
Historians and students, by contrast, tended to read deeply within the site — evaluating layout, looking for author credentials, reading policy statements. This approach is easily fooled by websites that are designed to look professional and authoritative regardless of the quality of their content. A sophisticated disinformation operation produces sites that look indistinguishable from credible outlets on the inside. What they cannot manufacture is an independent record of credibility in the outside world.
How to Perform Lateral Reading
Lateral reading in practice involves a few key moves. When you encounter an unfamiliar source, take just enough information to identify it — the organization name, the author name, or the specific claim — then open a new browser tab. Search for the organization name plus words like 'review,' 'credibility,' 'bias,' 'funding,' or 'criticism.' Look for what Wikipedia says about the organization — not necessarily to trust Wikipedia's conclusion, but because Wikipedia's citations point to independent sources that have investigated the organization. Search for the author's name to understand their track record and affiliation. Look for how established fact-checking organizations categorize the outlet.
Wikipedia itself is not an authoritative source for disputed facts — anyone can edit it. But its value for lateral reading is different: Wikipedia articles about organizations and outlets typically contain citations to investigative journalism, academic studies, and primary sources that have examined the organization independently. Use Wikipedia's references section as a directory of external scrutiny, not as the final word.
Match each lateral reading action to the specific question it helps answer.
Terms
Definitions
Drag terms onto their definitions, or click a term then click a definition to match.
When Lateral Reading Finds Nothing
Sometimes a lateral search turns up almost nothing — no Wikipedia page, no media coverage, no independent evaluation of the organization. This lack of an external record is itself informative. Long-established, credible organizations accumulate mentions, citations, evaluations, and coverage over time. A brand-new or obscure organization with virtually no independent record is not necessarily wrong, but you have less basis for trust. Treat unknown sources with appropriate caution and look for independently verifiable claims within their content rather than accepting their framing wholesale.
Why did professional fact-checkers outperform historians and college students in the Stanford lateral reading studies, even though historians have more academic training?
A student looks up an organization that published a report and finds almost no Wikipedia page, no news coverage, and no independent mentions of the organization anywhere. What does this absence of an external record most likely indicate?
Lateral Reading Practice
- Step 1: Your teacher or a classmate suggests an unfamiliar website or organization as a source. Do NOT read deeply into the site itself — spend no more than 30 seconds on its home page.
- Step 2: Open a new tab. Search: [Organization Name] credibility.
- Step 3: Open another tab. Search: [Organization Name] funding.
- Step 4: Open a third tab. Look up the organization on Wikipedia, then follow two of the cited sources in the Wikipedia references section.
- Step 5: Based only on what you found outside the website, write a two-sentence summary of what independent sources say about this organization's credibility and any relevant conflicts of interest.
- Step 6: Now compare: what does the organization say about itself on its own site, and how does that match or conflict with what you found externally?