This week, I want you to find an article on hog farming that has environmental implications. It would be best if the article were a fairly recent piece from a newspaper like the Des Moines Register, but you can also use an advocacy web site (from an environmental organization, or a hog producer's trade group, for example). The site should not be some far-out group that nobody would believe, however.
Summarize the article, explaining what its main point is, and what are the implications that the author is trying to convey. Then, find an interesting fact in the piece that is demonstrably false, or which very clearly implies something that is not true. When I say "interesting", I mean that if the site says "Iowa produces x hogs per year", that is not a fact worthy of checking into, but if it says "Hog waste is more carefully treated than human waste", that might be interesting. If you don't think it is an interesting fact, I probably won't either.
The goal of this assignment is to get you thinking about how solid are the "facts" that you read every day. However, it is possible that you will find your article to be carefully written and not at all misleading. In that case, I want you to give me two checked facts. It is up to you to determine what constitutes "checking" a fact. Of course I have to agree.