About Us
VerifyIt! was developed by volunteer members of the League of Women Voters Alameda CA, a non-partisan 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. It was designed by the LWVA Youth Outreach Services Committee (Linda Bytof, Sheila Durkin, Laura Kinley) with the invaluable assistance of Software Engineer Emeritus Ric Gagliardi and graphic designer Wendy Shiraki-Raphael, to address media literacy and voting knowledge, and to encourage civic engagement. We would also like to thank our wonderful volunteer authors, editors, and testers, including Douglas J. Day, Professor Emeritus of Politics, Mount Holyoke College, Iris Kane (News), and Adrienne O'Connor (Voting), and our talented web developers Mika Gu and Deni Kwan (provided by U.S. Digital Response) and Tavon Graves.
In keeping with our mission to empower voters and defend democracy, we developed the game to appeal to people of all ages but especially to young and future voters – ages 16 to 29 - to encourage them to become informed and active participants in their democracy. We hope that by providing the knowledge and understanding of important issues facing our country today, these young voters will become the League leaders of the future!
We have edited news articles/posts to fit game parameters and its educational design and have tried to credit news stories and images. Please send questions, comments and feedback to YouthOutreach@lwvalameda.org. For technical support go to verifyitsupport@lwvalameda.org.
NOTE: We have not yet been able to make the game completely accessible to those with learning or other disabilities. You may wish to read the questions to the class as well as have students read questions themselves.
How we handle rating
We have included both veracity ratings and bias ratings for sources if available because we believe it is important that news-readers have information about both the credibility of a source and its bias in reporting the news. So you will find ratings from the below two organizations:
MBFC is an independent online media outlet, dedicated to educating the public on media bias and deceptive news practices, following strict methodologies. Its aim is to inspire action and a rejection of overtly biased media to foster a return to an era of straight forward news reporting.
Allsides is a political news media bias rating center which aims to educate media consumers about the biases of news sources. It has a handy Media Bias Chart that shows where various news sources fall on the factual and political bias spectrum. It often provides separate bias ratings for news and opinion/editorial content.
Partners
Those have helped design and create the Game content and distribute this game to their members and constituency:
The Civics Center is a non-profit,non-partisan organization dedicated to building the foundations of youth civic engagement and voter participation in high schools through education, organizing, and advocacy. Its goal is to make every graduate a voter, by supporting student-led, peer-to-peer voter registration and pre-registration efforts in high school communities, initially in Los Angeles, California, and now nationwide. Its work has led to thousands of youth registrations.
American Constitution Society is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to building and leading a diverse legal community in a quest to advance and defend democracy, justice, equality, and liberty, to secure a government that serves the public interest, and to guard against the abuse of law and the concentration of power - making sure that the Constitution is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
