https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey#On_education_and_te... """ According to Dewey, the emphasis is placed on producing these attributes in children for use in their contemporary life because it is “impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now” (Dewey, MPC, 2010, p. 25). However, although Dewey is steadfast in his beliefs that education serves an immediate purpose (Dewey, DRT, 2010; Dewey, MPC, 2010; Dewey, TTP, 2010), he is not ignorant of the impact imparting these qualities of intelligence, skill and character on young children in their present life will have on the future society. While addressing the state of educative and economic affairs during a 1935 radio broadcast, Dewey linked the ensuing economic depression to a “lack of sufficient production of intelligence, skill and character” (Dewey, TAP, 2010, p. 242) of the nation’s workforce. As Dewey notes, there is a lack of these goods in the present society and teachers have a responsibility to create them in their students, who, we can assume, will grow into the adults who will ultimately go on to participate in whatever industrial or economical civilization awaits them. According to Dewey, the profession of the classroom teacher is to produce the intelligence, skill and character within each student so that the democratic community is composed of citizens who can think, do and act intelligently and morally. """
We have many people that were taught to trust the mainstream news organizations. Twenty years ago no one would have thought of blogs, news summary sites, gossip sites. We have a large proportion of society that never used library index cards, book glossaries, or used more than one source to study anything. They take any news given as true because it derives from some source of authority.
A child's education should not be focused on making money in the future. It's to create individuals that can function in a democratic society.
Yes you can have links and rate journalists but that won't solve the problem. I can legally change my name to Tom Brokaw and then what would you do... The issue has a striking correspondence to the difficulty of using the OpenPGP Public Key Infrastructure... Sure you can sign keys of journalists and have them sign their articles but it does not mean what they wrote is true. What if their editor took their key/password and published in their name? Or if upon expiration of key they just make another key using some journalist's name? You really want readers checking key fingerprints?
Maybe you can present the various sources of information and try to show links to research notes and such but I never see that provided on any news sources. Oh and what about anonymous insider tips... I see that often in the NYTimes... Why would your source of Truth in the times "Trump" my source of truth...?
Jay Rosen http://pressthink.org/ has struggled with this as well. I think he is for journalists just doing their jobs. He had an interesting discussion on the Bill Moyers show you should watch.
Journalists can only do so much. People need to take responsibility as well. In the 1990s would you take someone seriously that said "Hillary Clinton adopts an extraterrestrial"? http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/04/weekly-world-news-c... The articles might not be so outlandish now but give enough doubt to the mainstream coverage to confuse most people.