SPJ Florida brings back Fake News Game Show in Boynton Beach

SPJ Florida went to Boynton Beach Oct. 20 to run the first post-pandemic iteration of the Fake News Game Show, a program meant to help news consumers recognize the misinformation and disinformation that is rife on social media.

From the Women’s Club of Tivoli Lakes, a 55-and-up community, board members Wesley Wright and Christiana Lilly used scenarios real and fake to help those in the building to more quickly recognize dubious stories. Sources foreign and domestic perpetually seek to sow discord among the American public, and older Americans are especially susceptible to being duped by fake news.

The game show format allowed participants to actively discuss what they noticed in real time, and they appreciated learning the ways in which they can more accurately deem stories legitimate.

“The Fake News Game Show was informative, interesting, and so much fun,” said Elaine Gelber, who helped organize the event with the Women’s Club of Tivoli Lakes. “What an enjoyable way to learn more about media and how to discern the validity of what we read online. We learned a lot, and had fun doing it!”

The event was four years in the making, as the club first reached out to SPJ Florida in 2018 with plans to bring the show to the group when their clubhouse was finished. After construction delays, and then two years of COVID, the chapter was thrilled to be able to finally make their way to Boynton Beach to bring the Fake News Game Show to the group. With more than 50 participants, the group split into teams of five to compete for scratch-off lotto tickets as prizes.