FAU’s University Press Invites SPJ Florida to Host Fake News Game Show

Suzette Speaks, far left, and Christiana Lilly, far right, with the FAU Fake News Game Show participants.

SPJ Florida was invited to bring its award-winning Fake News Game Show to the University Press newsroom at Florida Atlantic University, where 13 students participated in the trivia game.

Hosted on Friday, Sept. 13, the students were a mix of student journalists and those interested in learning more about “fake news” and the media.

“The game show is a fun, interactive way for participants to test what they know about reliable media sources, and even the most savvy of us take something away from the game,” said immediate past president Christiana Lilly, who hosted the game show with Suzette Speaks, who sits on the SPJ Florida board of directors.

Suzette Speaks explains the Fake News Game Show to participants.

The students were split up intwo teams of three and had 30 seconds to one minute to discuss the validity of the news story that was projected onto a screen. All the stories had been published by reputable news sources, satire websites, or “fake news” sites. The contestants were only given the headline, deck, dateline (if possible) and the first few grafs of the story.

At the end of each round, Lilly and Speaks revealed whether the story was real or fake and tips to help them verify the validity of what they were reading. Two teams tied and won Starbucks gift cards.