Il Falso e il Vero came out in 2017, but this year it seems to have found a renewed life. So many teachers have adopted it, so many schools and libraries and associations have asked me to work together with workshops, courses, (virtual) dialogues. And it is exciting for me to find “my” themes in the eyes and words of the girls and boys I meet. Especially when, accompanied by extraordinary teachers, works like these come out, signed by some students of class 1L of the Liceo scientifico Federico II di Svevia of Altamura.
The authors are Francesco Grimaldi (pencil drawing), Federica Pellegrino (photography), Vito Flavio Signorella (digital drawing). Federica Pellegrino also wrote the review that I report below. To professor Margherita Susca goes my gratitude for creating such an engaging lab, and for sharing the wonderful results with me.
It’s fake and I’m not falling for it!
Let’s be straightforward: we all like boasting by telling someone unknown facts , behaving as though we were the only mind of the group.
Imagine talking with your friends and then randomly asking them: “Do you know what the post-truth era is?” or “Who are the fact-checkers?” or, again, “What does ‘filter bubble’ mean?”. In that moment, at least the most inquiring ones would ask us to clarify; then we would start giving our collection of information which might be of any advantage to everyone.
That would be amazing. But, obviously, we wouldn’t be able to explain what social bots are useful for if we weren’t even aware of what they actually are. With regard to this, you know what they are, don’t you? If your answer is a hesitant “yes”, don’t worry, there is a book that is good for you. Its title is “Il falso e il vero” (“the false and the true”), and it was written by the journalist Gabriela Jacomella and published by Feltrinelli in 2017.
Born in 1977, she has degree in Literature and Philosophy (she graduated from the Normale University, in Pisa) and started her career working for the “Corriere della Sera”. She founded a no-profit association which promotes the fact-checking culture, currently she is working for the European University Institute*, she is involved in a research project about fake news and international policies, meanwhile she contributes to several newspapers.
This is her first book which may be considered a real guidebook that teaches us what we should know about fake news. Besides technical words , she fascinates the readers with a lot of other curiosities . In this book Gabriela Jacomella reveals us the background of fake news and it contains all the necessary tips to be no longer be victims of this illegal phenomenon.
Federica Pellegrino
Translation by Marivita Fiore
*Federica could not have known this, because her review was based on the material in the book, but my collaboration with the European University Institute ended as The False and the True “came of age.”
