This week is National News Literacy Week. And what better time to seek out unbiased journalism than now, when it seems as if there are only two flavors of reporting, right and left.
The current atmosphere is drastically compounded by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that drive social media feeds; ask a question online, and you’ll usually get a plethora of photos, videos and reporting that appear real but can be AI generated.
News Literacy Project.
The News Literacy Project hopes to “restore trust in standards-based news and embrace a healthy skepticism (not cynicism) by helping young people stay grounded with facts.”
According to the organization, 84% of teens in the United States had negative feelings toward journalists and journalism. The group’s goal is to provide news literacy education so students can more skillfully judge for themselves what information to trust, believe and share.
Curate Your Own Feed and Fact Check
Seek out opinions other than your own and read, read, read. Watch the “other side.” Take the time to find sites like All Sides, which promotes itself as having “balanced news and perspectives.” The main page features headline roundups sorted by reports from the left, center and right.
Check the facts. Use sites such as Fact Check (which claims to debunk “fake news”). It’s a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. When Fact Check selects material to write about, they say they “seek to devote an equal amount of time reviewing claims by Republicans and Democrats. We do that by reviewing statements they make in the same venues.” Writers review the Sunday talk shows, TV ads, Presidential remarks, C-SPAN, and more then research transcripts and videos for fact-based statements – or inaccurate/misleading ones.
Another fact checking site is Snopes. It’s been around since 1994 and is one of the earliest that I remember for investigating urban legends, hoaxes and folklore. On Snopes, writers research a claim and rate it true (indicates that the primary elements of a claim are demonstrably true) or false (indicates that the primary elements of a claim are demonstrably false). Anyone can submit a rumor or claim but Snopes does not confirm they can respond to each one.
Don’t Get Lulled.
The point is do not get lulled into gathering news from just one source. Gone are the days of Walter Kronkite, David Brinkley, Eric Sevareid, Harry Reasoner, Dan Rather and Peter Jennings. We no longer have the “big three” networks that, ostensibly, thoroughly gathered and reported the news of the day in an unbiased and trustworthy fashion.
It’s not always comfortable and does take time but read and view the other side. Listen for differences in reporting and observe the similarities. It’s like the old game of telephone, where you whisper a phrase into your pal’s ear and by the time that phrase gets around the 10 people in the circle, the message has demonstrably changed.
Push Back on Inaccuracy.
When your friends and family repeat a misstatement, usually it’s innocent enough. They really think they are repeating fact. But if you know it to be false reporting, it benefits all of us to push back and say, “I heard something quite different. Let’s figure this out together.”
In our democratic society, freedom of the press is a right under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It’s not only up to the students whom the News Literacy Project wants to educate, it’s up to all of us. Our very democracy and truth in reporting may be at stake.