W01
Wait.
What is my first reaction?
Pause before you share. Notice the urge to believe, dismiss, or react.
MEDIA LITERACY · NEWS · AI
Before you
share it.
WATER check it.
A convincing headline. A cropped screenshot. An AI answer that sounds certain. Start with one question: What am I missing?
Free to use. No account required.
WAIT / ASK / TRACE / EXAMINE / RESPOND
THE FRAMEWORK
Five moves.
A better question at each one.
Information can be accurate and still leave you misled. WATER gives you a way to look for what the presentation leaves out.
A02
Ask.
What exactly is the claim?
Make it specific. Decide what evidence would support or challenge it.
T03
Trace.
Where did this come from?
Find the original document, full video, study, or source behind the repost.
E04
Examine.
What am I missing?
Check the date, context, scale, omissions, and what the evidence actually shows.
R05
Respond.
What has the evidence earned?
Share, question, correct, investigate, wait, or walk away. Uncertainty is an answer, too.
HOW WATER BECAME WATER
It started
with water.
Dihydrogen monoxide contributes to erosion. Its vapor can cause severe burns. Inhaling it can kill you.
All true. Also: it’s water.
That’s the DHMO exercise. Give ordinary water an unfamiliar chemical name, list the dangers, and leave out the context. You haven’t necessarily told a lie. You’ve still given someone a very different picture of what they’re looking at.
That is the problem I wanted to keep working on. Finding a false statement matters. But what happens when the statements are true and the impression is wrong?
I took the word at the center of the reveal—WATER—and turned it into an acronym: Wait, Ask, Trace, Examine, Respond. A way to pause, name the claim, follow it back to its source, examine what’s missing, and decide what to do with it.
The next headline won’t necessarily come with a clever reveal. We still have to check.
PUT IT TO WORK
Bring one claim.
Follow the evidence.
The interactive checker walks you through WATER and helps you record your sources, missing context, and next step. Your text notes stay in your browser.
WATER is a thinking routine. It does not assign a credibility score or decide what you should believe.
Open the free checkerIN THE CLASSROOM
Make checking
a habit.
Use WATER with a news story, a graph, a viral post, or an AI-generated answer. Ask students to show what they checked—and what they still cannot tell.
Explore teaching resourcesCREATED BY ERIC JOURGENSEN, Ed.D.
Ask better questions.
WATER brings Eric’s work in journalism, education, and media literacy into a repeatable practice for everyday claims.
Speaking & workshops