Tag: media literacy

Read news written by journalists

A recent article from the Blue Skunk blog (Doug Johnson is about my age and has been blogging about as long) laments the decline of newspapers and the willingness of everyone to read original journalism. He identifies the lack of willingness to pay for a paper or two as a significant issue. There are many great books on the decline of newspapers in the last few years (I happen to be reading Merchants of Truth by Jill Abramson at this time) and all describe the struggles of news sources that employ journalists to collect the news from original sources in an era of declining revenue and free outlets that are mostly opinions and retelling of the content generated by others. There are compounding factors such as the lack of patience for investing time in long form reading and a focus on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Buzzfeed, etc. leading individuals to assume they are informed when they are not. Doug urges us to invest in actual news sources as a commitment to reading the news and keeping journalism alive.

Johnson’s post caused me to think about my own reading. I read a lot and a great deal of long form content (books, news articles), but I don’t subscribe to what might be described as a major national news outlet. I subscribe to the Minneapolis StarTribune which I read digitally and we pay for an Apple News+ subscription which offers to a wide selection of magazines, the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, but not the New York Times or Washington Post. I read articles from the Post and Times when articles not part of the subscriptions are available or until I have exhausted my monthly allotment.

I encourage others to look at two news aggregation services which I use and describe below.

First, is the Apple news aggregator and Apple+ (Apple+ is $10 a month).

This site offers access to a wide variety of quality sources. Try the link even if you are not interested in the paid level. The site seems to work better using Safari and I would recommend this browser if you are interested in the paid level (it knows who you are across devices and this seems to make access easier).

I would also recommend Google’s aggregation site – news.google.com. This site is interesting in the way it organizes content by topic with multiple sources per topic and if you are willing as a way to explore the same story from multiple perspectives.

Google news also makes it clear whether a story is available with or without a subscription to a particular service saving the time and frustration of trying to read content you will not see in full.

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Degree of bias vs falsehoods

Some months ago I began cross-posting some of the things I write elsewhere to Facebook. I was interested in exploring the potential of social media as an opportunity for argumentation. I suppose this word (argumentation) might be foreign to many, but you might want to translate it as debate. This is essentially the notion that discussions can explore issues through processes that involve assertions, supporting assertions with facts/data, and taking on the assertions made by others through the same processes of counter-assertations and facts/data. I have long been a promoter of social media as a way to involve the public in important issues and thought rather than write for the audience I have I should take a more open approach.
 
I must say I have not been particularly impressed with what I have observed in Facebook. Few participants actually participate. There is mostly the linking of things folks have found online with little personal reflection or commentary. There tends to be little interaction and far less commentary at a deep level. I am not certain how to change this. I understanding that actually writing takes a good deal of effort, but without some effort I think little is accomplished.
 
Another issue I have noticed is the type of content people are willing to post. Again, I come from a tradition of argumentation based on sources (mostly in the scientific literature). I understand that many political issues are not based on formal sources, but so much of the content I see comes from sources of such poor reputation. It seems that some seek extreme examples and about the only way to do this is to promote content from extreme and sketchy sources.
 
My wife and I have discussed this issue often because of our common background in educational technology. She recommended that I recommend a site for evaluating the credibility of sources. Try this site (and read about their approach if you are concerned). There is a textbox at the top of the page that returns an evaluation of news sources – both bias and factual accuracy.
 
Bias and factual focus can be different things. Bias for some might be described as spin – how one tries to explain facts. Factual focus is really whether facts are even the basis for the content. I would interpret the notion of fake news as news that is not factually based. The site I recommend will indicate if a “news” source has promoted positions that are known be false.
 
Try sites you know and assume promote a spin – CNN, MSNBC, NPR (use National Public Radio), Wall Street Journal. You will note that these sites are all “centrist” with a bias (left, right). All are typically fact based. If you can, try some of the sources for the Facebook posts that seem extreme (if you can identify the source). My experience has been that such content is described as biased to a far greater degree than the sources I list above, but also rated as far more likely to promote false narratives. This is the type of information Facebook should add to any “sourced” content.
 
Facebook talks a good game about the promotion of false narratives but seems to be overly careful about taking practical actions that would allow authors and readers to acknowledge the credibility of their sources. You can do this for yourself.
 

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Media Literacy – "Killer political ads”

CNN carried several interesting spots this evening (with a full analysis later tonight) concerning “killer” political ads (ads intended to smear an opponent). One of the spots featured an ad creator who explained how ads can confuse/misrepresent the facts, use images to disrespect an opponent, etc.

This would seem a great opportunity for a media literacy lesson. Record some ads and determine which of these techniques are used.

One technique involved the use of close-ups to portray individuals in a more unflattering way. See images below. Which represents Mark in an unflattering way? (I am not asking for comments)

me at a distance

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