Stony Brook University is offering a course to help news consumers discern fact from fiction.

Fake news has been a hot topic lately, especially since an armed man stormed a Washington, D.C. pizzeria earlier in December over fabricated reports that the restaurant was the site of a child abuse ring.

"I think along with the news media doing a better job, and technology doing a better job, we have to train the news consumers of the future," says Howard Schneider, the dean of Stony Brook's School of Journalism. "Unless all three things happen, we won't solve the problem."

The new, six-week online course is called "Making Sense of the News: News Literacy Lessons for Digital Citizens." It aims to combat fake news and educate citizens on how to judge a story's accuracy.

Social media attorney Paul Rubell says that while fake news isn't a new thing, it's never spread so fast before.

"It's all over the place, because one would only need to open their Facebook feed or Twitter feed, and there it is," Rubell says.

Because of that, news consumers like Lindsey Lawrence, of Brooklyn, say people need to be careful about fact-checking what they read.

"You don't just hear something and believe it to be true," Lawrence says. "You take it in, keep your ears open, and you ask questions."

And that's what Stony Brook's course aims to teach its students.