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

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

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also like an accent in that a bit of one is not bad at all, but a very heavy one makes things almost unrecognizable. "... has a bias" is trivially true for just about anything. That also makes that sentence useless unless you add more information.

Even the idea that an accent is "a bit" or "heavy" depends on believing that some particular way of speaking is the standard, with zero accent. It's very close to declaring some accent the "right" way to speak. Recognizing that "everyone has an accent" and "everyone has a bias" is about learning to think in greater depth than the natural human tendency to believe "I'm right, and everyone who sees the world differentl…

No it doesn't. You don't need anyone with zero accent. You just observe that a distribution has some kind of average or median, done.

Also, you are drawing the wrong conclusion. "Everyone has..." is simplistic. Some have more, some less is nuanced.

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

#272
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…

How effective is the class? AP English classes have a very similar curriculum ( https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-langua... ), yet here we are. The fact is there's selection bias in people who even take these types of classes, and there's really no way to know how effective it is in reducing ones propensity to be "misinformed" (by whatever measure).

That's because the problem isn't media literacy, it's culture war. Both sides believe that they are fighting a do or die battle for their ideology, and are likely to support something even if the evidence is dubious because it advances the cause.

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

#273
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…

Was there anything about the implicit trust of government sources news media seem to have?

I'm always annoyed when the media sites "anonymous intelligence sources" for a story. You're telling me that you trust spies to tell you the truth? Spies are probably pretty damn good at lying.

The media will cite the Pentagon with a straight face completely forgetting its lies to the whole world about WMDs.

And finally somehow both the Army and Pentagon both agreeing on a version of a story means the story is verified. It's not like they communicate with each other and have the same objective!

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

#274
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What basis is there for these claims? > IMO the most effective and most widely deployed (especially among the supposedly more reputable publications) propaganda tool isn’t outright lies, but rather, selective reporting of cherry-picked facts and omission of others to shape stories into their predefined narratives. TFA doesn’t address that at all. That doesn't mean it isn't taught. The article can't cover everything t…

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…

Is that not problematic? You make an extraordinary claim, but then "there is no time for me to back it up." But there was time to make the claim, and this is ultimately the problem. You have just accepted out of hand that it is truth and want others to accept it.

Why should I trust anything you say, then? I don't doubt that there are biases, they're certainly are. But you're expecting us to just accept it out of hand.

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

#275

I feel like they should just teach more statistics. Learn about bias, sampling and significance. > Students reportedly got a lot better at spotting questionable sources. Like that's definitely a step in the right direction, i.e., don't just blindly trust what you see on Insta or FB, but I worry it'll just teach kids to blindly trust mainstream media like the NYTimes, which are not without their own biases.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

- Mark Twain

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

#276
post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

> Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda.

Remember how this story was botched by an entertainment show (not my definition, theres) disguised as news (Fox News)?[0]

I think this is the point. It's hard to take a "journalist" seriously when there's so many obvious points of amateurism. Kids should be taught to keep those stewards of information accountable and that shock jock news entertainment (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc.) should warrant extra criticism (if not downright ignored completely).

[0] - https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-says-he-had-authenti...

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

#277
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

you disagree with the thesis of someone's argument. Mapping that to 'straight liar' is unlikely to lead to meaningful understanding of their point or sincere engagement with their work...its an unhelpful epistemic and ontological perspective.

[flagged]

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

#278
post #52

Part of the primary school curriculum here in Norway is how to be critical of source material, no matter where it comes from. We call it “source criticism.” Summed up, it's about how trustworthy a source is, what method was used to obtain the data or opinions in the material (if any), whether the observations or claims in it are first hand or second hand, and whether its conclusions are reasonably objective or subjec…

> We call it “source criticism.” Summed up, it's about how trustworthy a source is, what method was used to obtain the data or opinions in the material (if any), whether the observations or claims in it are first hand or second hand, and whether its conclusions are reasonably objective or subjective. That sounds fantastic. What is known about, and what are your experiences with, the outcomes? After class? 1 year late…

I'm from Canada and we were taught something similar as early as grade school. But that was back in the 1990s and I'm not sure if it's currently part of the curriculum or if this was taught across the country as education curriculum is mostly a provincial responsibility.

It was explained to us in simple terms that everyone's experience with the world is unique. As such, there is no such thing as unbiased sources and we should always consume news critically. They were simpler times. The most political it got was when my teacher brought in the 3 main newspapers in our area and candidly shared with the class how they were stereotyped in their political editorial leanings. For Americans, think of it like sharing this statement: "Fox News leans toward Republican policies. The New York Times leans toward Democrat policies. USA Today is somewhere in between."

There wasn't any discussion of whether these newspapers were accurate or inaccurate. Fact checks weren't rattled off to us about each source. Rather, the teacher kindly explained to us that it was impossible to be unbiased and we did exercises to critically interpret news sources and see how the same topic might be covered by multiple sources.

I'm going on a bit of an aside for the historical context in which I had these lessons for the next two paragraphs, so feel free to skip to the final paragraph.

In some ways while they were simpler times informationally, Canada was going through wilder times politically back then. There's an argument to be made that Canada as a country was more divided in the early 1990s than the US is today. Québec separation was a very real possibility during this time and actively being sought within our political system. This wasn't just the online pissing contests that some Americans have talking about California or Texas separating from the union. Separatist parties were elected both at Québec's provincial level and as the official opposition party in Canada [EDIT: for Americans unfamiliar with this concept, our Prime Minister and the ruling party had to spend the majority of their daily routine responding to attacks from separatists in the House of Commons and every day the news would have this front-and-centre].

For those too young to remember, the political turmoil culminated in a referendum in the province of Québec -- 50.58% to stay in Canada and 49.42% to become an independent country. The Canadian military had to strategically fly its CF-18s out of their Québec base to American ones in case the referendum passed lest they fall into a foreign nation's hands. Our Prime Minister was busy actively seeking the support of President Bill Clinton and shoring up our gold supplies while the would-be leader of an independent Québec had an official visit to France complete with red carpet and television crews to discuss what their relationship would be once Québec separated.

What's my point? I suppose just to give Americans who still believe in the core concept of the country, a bit of hope. As divided as things are today, they can quickly change. Furthermore, I believe that it is possible to teach these things so they have real merit and aren't just tools of the current political ruling party even in uncertain and highly divided times.

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

#279

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…

From a political point of view those are biased sources though, when 90+% of their journalists are self-proclaimed liberals this should be immediately obvious.

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

#280
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I hear this a lot, but I graduated from a US university and I never knew how any of my professors stood on political matters (and I was a hardcore conservative in college). Right-wingers tend to be upset that social sciences and the humanities exist as research topics and degree programs, mostly because they're not happy with study results that run counter to their beliefs.
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