This thought has been in the back of my mind for quite a while due to the fact that throughout my time learning about history, I learned that things were not always what they seemed to be or were not how I was taught long ago like how Columbus never actually set foot on American soil and his reverence as an American hero came much later after the foundation of America as a nation (and it was done by Italian immigrants, not Americans), or how the stories of Nero during the great fire of Rome were probably exaggerated and sensationalist remarks of the tyrant that he was during that time to picture him in a bad image, or how I learned that the Greco-Persian war and the Peloponnesian War were not that black and white as I was told before, or how I once taught that the Roman Enpire actually ended after the fall of Rome during the 4th Century but actually still existed as the Byzantine Empire (at least the historians call it that because the Byzantines still called themselves Romans) till the 15th Century.
All of these were either the results of misinformation (whether intentional or not; possible bias or perhaps propaganda (like Herodotus, the father of history, is also known as the father of lies (at least, that was what he was known for at a time) becuase at was later found in the Histories, some connotations were either false or make-believe); or where some facts or evidence were re-arranged in a manner that people viewed as what was fit for them or how they saw it (like The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon where he glorified the legacies and the actions that the Western Roman Empire left behind that impacted Europe but completely neglected the Byzantine Empire); or where there are historical information that you find in plenty of books, articles and websites and are treated as fact or valid but later investigations or later insight of other perspectives of a certain event with say otherwise (like for example, there is a online comic that depicts as Nikola Tesla as a greatest and misunderstood genius who ever lived. I even believed that too until I encountered a detailed article (I think it was on reddit as well, I cannot remember) that debunked the whole article and treated it as rhetoric. Or another example is when later investigations found that the pyramids were probably built by paid workers, not by slaves)
Sometimes perceptions of historical events have influenced other areas like works of art like the story of Nazi Germany and WW2 have influenced the moulding of the archetype of the crazy army and fanatical dictator stereotype that wants to conquer the world for the sake of world domination or fanaticism regardless of the history that led to it or the factors that influenced in the background that led to it. Or how current perceptions of history can influence how we view historical events from the current 21st century perspective which can hinder us from fully understanding how it was at that time like for example our views towards imperialism vs how imperialism was practiced beforehand and why;, or how certain civilisations get more attention over others (this is something that puzzles me actually) while the others are neglected and their legacies and influences are hindered from being recognised, explored or even given the attention for whatever secrets they may hold (like for example Damascus steel or the Nazca lines of Peru)
There are plenty of people involved here - historians who have to examine the perspectives of the people who wrote these histories, whether it is from other books, letters, drawings, diaries and so on; then you have the people themselves who even wrote these stories in the beginning which could differ in context, description, accuracy or exaggeration; then you have the authors of the history books, the academic articles, the websites and the forums online, and then you have the teachers and the students who learn and teach what they know and spread the message along.
So obviously, then it comes to histography and passing those histories along, there is a possibility that errors might come up, perhaps a person understood the story in a different way, or when passing the story by word of mouth could lead ommission/addition/change of certain details, translations from different languages can lead to possible inaccurate mistranslations as different language may not have the exact word of every word from another language or certain words or phrases could interpreted differently, and so on and so forth.
It sounds like a big thought where I am probably jumping to conclusions without knowing the answers but it is something that makes me think and sometimes even worry when misinformation is spread around treated as valid or factual
This older thread has a couple of great comments, from u/commiespaceinvader and u/thepioneeringlemming, about how to check the accuracy of a book before you read it. I'd also add a couple of other notes:
Use libraries, not bookstores, to find books. Plus they're free.
Make sure the book has a bibliography section and notes (either footnotes or endnotes). If you run across a book without any, you need to be skeptical of the information. It may not be wrong, but if you don't know where an author is getting their information from, you can't check it yourself. (Looking at you, Shelby Foote.)
Avoid documentaries, even really long ones, other than as an introduction to a topic. Even Ken Burns' The Civil War has many sections that are problematic, including essentially leaving out the narrative of enslaved people and spending very little time on women's experience of the war.
Try to get book recommendations from people who are experts at finding information (e.g., librarians). Be wary of popular books on a topic (by which I mean the Bill O'Reilly-type "history" that your local Barnes and Noble is going to put on the display table).
Look at who published a book. If it's from a university press or specialty press, it's likely (though not guaranteed) to be better than whatever Simon and Schuster is pushing this quarter.
Look at what else the author has written. David McCullough is a historian who's published widely in multiple different fields, and his books have gotten somewhat more problematic over time. Robert Caro has spent most of his professional career writing an enormous, multivolume biography of LBJ -- which is not without its nitpicks, but he's the one person who's spent more time studying LBJ's papers than anyone else on Earth.
If you find a book you like, look at its sources to see where the author is citing information from, then find those books and read them too, or look at their introduction and see what they're responding to, or what books they're positioning themselves near. Then read those. That's how you figure out what's going on in the historiography of a topic. (I read a lot about the battle of Jutland a couple of years ago, so I could settle in my mind the Beatty-Jellicoe feud and understand the various sides of the argument.)
Check out the AskHistorians book list. It's not perfect but it will give you a place to start.
Seriously though use libraries. If you're a current college or university student, there are people who work for your school whose entire job it is to help you find reliable information. If you're not, your local non-academic library has the same people. Most universities will allow non-students to access their libraries for free, or possibly a small fee, for borrowing privileges (most will just let you walk in and read anything in the library).
To some extent, ‘misinformation’ is always a possibility (depending on your position and view in/upon the world at any given time) and whether there can ever be a truly objective history when we consider personal experiences and sources written in any way outside of fact itself is unlikely. However, certainly within my history undergraduate degree, I was taught that a bias (from which ‘misinformation’ may stem) is not inherently useless. We can learn a great deal about mentalités throughout history through particular biases and, whilst they may be wrong to our modern source base or sensibilities perhaps, they are arguably a part of the history itself. At any rate, it is the job of the historian to be as fairly critical of its source base (primary and secondary) and as ‘objective’ as humanly possible but can a historian using, or referencing, a common rumour at a time ever use it 100% objectively? No and in which case, the historian must understand and acknowledge that it cannot be used 100% objectively - which is not to say that it should 100% never be used at all. From a kind of cold, clinical view, there should be no ‘misinformation’ but this is impossible and actually, when studying history, really digging into a subject through the uncertainties and basing an argument on what are, or what are likely to be (through critical analysis), certainties is part of the challenge, knowledge-gathering process and reward.