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Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

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231–240 of 490 posts

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#231
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, read the guidelines. Don’t do “did you even read the article” here. Secondly, I did read the article. All it talks about is spotting questionable sources, comparing reports to shake out fake news, etc. As I said, the most effective propaganda tool is omission. You’re not going to compare sources on something you never even read about. After fact-checking a hundred times you’ll decide that NPR does report facts…

> As I said, the most effective propaganda tool is omission. You’re not going to compare sources on something you never even read about. How is that a risk? What are the chances that anyone will only see news from one source? > After fact-checking a hundred times you’ll decide that NPR does report facts, but do those facts paint the whole picture? After fact-checking a hundred times, won't you learn NPR's strengths a…

> Quality news, no deception or try to push an agenda

you... may want to take a refresher course in the topic at hand

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#232

Not sure how useful this will be. News outlets fights amongst other news outlets to get the most attention and clicks. Surely if you teach kids a recipe on how to spot questionnable sources, these sources will adapt to look legitimate.

So we shouldn’t bother trying to teach them how to catch even the most basic, stupid, obvious attempts to manipulate them, then?

I guess we shouldn’t patch security holes in any software, either. Attackers will just spend increasing amounts of effort to find new ones. It’s not worth developing vaccines for any diseases, either. They’ll just adapt. Why lock your car or your house? Determined people can pick the lock, or just break a window.

There is absolutely no benefit to be found in raising the bar so that the stupidest, low-effort attacks no longer work. None at all.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It teaches about how to tell journalism apart from other kinds of information, like entertainment and opinion; the hallmarks of good reporting, like transparency; discerning assertion from verification, and evidence from inference; the idea of seeking out multiple sources and how to reconcile them, etc. It's more a toolbox of how to inform oneself, regardless of any specific source. Provided it can stick to that, I…

> But the landscape has become a lot more partisan/ideological in the last 10 years, particularly at universities, so I understand why people are skeptical/concerned. What if the propagandists are portraying it that way, in order to create that skepticism/concern. They do delegitimize one institution after another: Journalism, education, government, etc. - these are the big ones. > so much unabashedly propagandist co…

You don't have to "what if" it, people have already looked into it. In "The Coddling of the American Mind" they cite studies showing that universities are more left-leaning than they've ever been.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#234
post #218
post #98

I've taken a news literacy class at Stony Brook about 10 years ago, when it was then a relatively new program. I think it's an incredibly valuable thing. It was taught in more the general sense of how to apply critical thinking to judge news stories. To the people saying that this just instills propaganda about specific news sources: consider learning a little bit more about the class. It teaches about how to tell jo…

The problem, in my experience, is that most people are happy to learn "how to apply critical thinking to judge news stories," will agree to the principals in a general sense, and then go on and only apply such tools towards things they are biased against and while uncritically believing any reporting that either confirms their bias or seems to be part of the common sense of their peer group. For instance, NPR talks a…

smells like cognitive bias

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the news has become just propaganda... no responsibility, no nothing. But people like to consume stuff they believe in...

> "has become" Was there a time when it wasn't? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias#History

The media has had a "golden age", where the largest vehicles did research and presented well fundamented ideas. It lasted for at least a few decades, as it was visibly improving at the 40's and was still very good at the 80's.

Things were never perfect, of course. And we have never had as many facts available to reach our own conclusions (so, it's arguable if people are less or more informed today), but looking only at the media, things weren't always that bad.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah I remember this whole charade. It happened rather early and was blatantly transparent.

yeah, and it's sad, because it wasn't something that was unverifiable, it wasn't an "unnamed source"... it was something recorded by many cameras and broadcasted in many places... figuring out it was a lie was a 5 minute process. How can i trust them then with an "unnamed source" stories, when they lie about stuff recorded on camera?

You can't, and shouldn't. The people in this thread that still have blind faith in the legacy media are mind boggling to me

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#237
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot learn from the government which news sources will give you reliable information about the government any more than you would trust cigarette manufacturers to tell you which studies about cigarettes to trust. Step 1 is abolishing government schools entirely.

whats step 2

Seize the university endowments, the crystallization of privilege, and dispense them as reparations. They are the ones perpetuating this depraved system to the next generation of government agents. No one will believe you unless you work for a place like the NYT, but you can't get into the NYT unless you came through a short list of universities that make sure you know what to say/do. They reinforce this by training the teachers to only accept their approved sources in schools.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#238
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, the main thesis of the project is claiming 1619 is the true founding. And the project writer secretly removed it and denied she said it. > In September 2020, lead 1619 Project writer Nikole Hannah-Jones criticized conservatives for their depiction of the project, arguing that it "does not argue that 1619 is our true founding".[12] Atlantic writer Conor Friedersdorf responded on Twitter by citing statements f…

the thesis of an argument is by definition not a fact. It's a point...founding is a theoretical concept, its metaphorical, its not provable and demonstrable and repeatable. Wow.

I quoted the main thesis is to simply demonstrating the creator of project is a straight liar, so her work can't be trusted. You can get more information by reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#239

As an independent voter, I try to pinch my nose and read both parties' propaganda machines, but I just can't stomach it. All I want is facts. edit: We can thank Ronald Reagan for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

> I try to pinch my nose and read both parties' propaganda machines There is a lot you can find that isn't in propaganda machines. One essential piece of propaganda is to say that everything is propaganda, like a liar saying everyone lies. The very good news is that, while nothing will meet a standard of perfection, there are excellent news sources - you have more access to quality news than anyone in history, thanks…

> Despite what those propagandists and opinion pieces say, the NY Times, Washington Post, and similar publications do provide quality news (don't read their opinion sections either).

They do, but only on certain subjects they approve of. There are often major world or local events that are never covered in these outlets. Just to give some recent examples, the largest worker protests and strike in history happened in 2020 across India, and not 1 mainstream outlet in the US and UK covered it at all. Similarly, the miners' protests in NY were not covered in mainstream media.

I do agree that on the news they do cover, you can get decent facts from the papers you cite.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#240
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but I don’t have time to write a case study on NYT biases. Also, you seem to be thinking purely in terms of U.S. politics, Democrats vs Republicans, left vs right. I’m talking more broadly. You’re not going to get a balanced view on a lot of international topics by consuming and comparing an ensemble of U.S. mainstream media (you can even throw British media in there) for instance, however bitterly they fight a…

And? Is that bad? It gives an "American" perspective, which considering the influence of the US is important. That does not make it a bad newspaper.

I can’t answer this question without venturing into nationalistic flame bait territory.
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