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

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

#321

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #302

refurb wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this is downvoted. This is what I was taught in the past - mainstream media is reliable and trustworthy. Hell, those same media organizations reinforce that belief when they attack less mainstream news sources. Yet if you look at the list of mistakes the mainstream media has made in the past decade I’m not sure why anyone would assume they are worthy of an assumption of good faith reporting.

The problem is the non-mainstream is worse. It's like the alt-med argument - sure, point at "big pharma" and tell us how corrupt they are. That doesn't mean homeopathy works.

They trained you to divide the world into two neat and convenient boxes where one box is represented by the NYT and the other box is represented by Alex Jones and flat earthers.

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

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Post by leereeves » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

diffeomorphism wrote: post #271

leereeves wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're treating that theoretical average or median, even if no one speaks that way, as the standard accent against which all others are compared.

That's one way in which people sometimes choose a "right" or "zero" accent. Another is by social standing ("the queen's English" was literally that).

Either way, that's declaring one accent the right way of speaking, and describing people who speak differently as having a "heavy" accent instead of simply a different way of speaking.

Perhaps a specific example would make this clear. There are many dialects and accents of German in Germany. Which one would you declare the standard, and who would you describe as having a "heavy" accent?

My point is that making such a judgement is wrong to begin with, and one should simply describe a particular accent by its features or regional distribution, not as "heavy".

(And to respond, briefly, to the comment below: when learning a foreign language you choose to learn a particular dialect and accent. That doesn't make other accents "heavy", they just aren't the accent you've learned.)

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

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Post by da_big_ghey » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #257

sumtechguy wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The National Enquirer is not the same as the New York Times This is true. But the NYT has an agenda, would you not agree? The Enquirer is easy to spot. The NYT is more subtle about what they do (mostly). I ask "If you have to 'unfilter' everything why am I reading this"? Look at the stories they choose to cover and ignore. Then look at the particular phraseology they use to talk about particular groups. Which group…

> the NYT has an agenda, would you not agree? The Enquirer is easy to spot. The NYT is more subtle about what they do (mostly). I ask "If you have to 'unfilter' everything why am I reading this"? Look at the stories they choose to cover and ignore. Then look at the particular phraseology they use to talk about particular groups. Which groups are always in glowing terms. Which groups are constantly downed on. No group…

NYT has more than "some bias" toward liberal. It has Paul Krugman for regular opinion columnist, for starters, one article from him on today: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/opinion/inflation-infrast...

But these are opinion, so examine one news story from also today: https://www.nytimes.com/article/emotional-labor.html

"emotional labor" you never will hear outside of very leftwing area, same with use of term like "partner" or specification of "in heterosexual partnership". These are not noticeable for many readers from urban area but are almost jump off the page to any from, say, more rural background. Coverage clearly is more than "a little" bias.

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

#324

Post by refenestrator » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #251

refenestrator wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That lab leak theory is the most amazing example of widespread bias on all sides I've ever seen. We went from it being banned on Facebook to it having mainstream acceptance in like a week despite ZERO change in the underlying evidence. The evidence was always just "well there's a lab there". The only thing that changed was Trump isn't president anymore. It's the perfect rorschach issue for underlying bias, free of an…

The coverup with a man who authorized the funding for the lab being the only American on the WHO scientific panel investigating the lab was the smoking gun for me. It really doesn't matter if it came from the lab or from the environment. The fact that they covered it up shows the lab was breaking protocols and they believed it could have been the lab that released the virus. The lab needs to be shut down and similar…

Covered what up? It's not like the virus signed out at the front desk and they're hiding it. Nobody knows, there's no evidence to cover up.

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

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Post by downWidOutaFite » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

bnralt wrote: post #218

bonyt wrote: 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…

By the way, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is bullshit up until someone does an actual study on it. It's just anecdote based at this point, and my personal anecdotes don't support it.

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

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Post by Shared404 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

janeroe wrote: post #242

avs733 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who actually engaged with that story, I found the reporting and posited facts to be incoherent and full of holes. It only made sense if one presumed the outcome. Literacy includes evaluating why something was covered by certain folks and not by others as well as the internal coherence and the inter-relationship.

> As someone who actually engaged with that story, I found the reporting and posited facts to be incoherent and full of holes. Was the story of Russians electing Trump coherent and without holes?

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...

It has real evidence. I can hunt down more if you like.

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

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Post by NoSorryCannot » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

oefrha wrote: post #306

forz877 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> You have just accepted out of hand that it is truth and want others to accept it. No, I really don’t give a damn about whether others accept it. I can post my opinion simply as food for thought.

If this is your stance, then walk the walk and stop replying.

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

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Post by guerrilla » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #170

GiorgioG wrote: post #16

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, ... do[es] provide quality news (don't read their opinion sections either).

You ever read Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent[1]? If you can't bring yourself to read the book, he made a film about it too [2]. But the book has hundreds of examples (well sourced) of why you should probably rethink that.

1. https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Econo...

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuwmWnphqII

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

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Post by ethbr0 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:35 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #313

wolverine876 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AP English is available only to a narrow group of people. > there's really no way to know how effective it is in reducing ones propensity to be "misinformed" (by whatever measure) It seems straightforward to research it.

> AP English is available only to a narrow group of people. Most regular English classes have a very similar curriculum and almost certainly any English teacher on the high school level will say part of their learning objectives for their students is to improve critical thinking skills. > It seems straightforward to research it. How would you? Seems very difficult to me.

> How would you? Seems very difficult to me.

If the question is "How effective is a course in reducing ones propensity to be "misinformed"?" then that's a pretty basic (and cheap) experimental psychology study.

Set up a control group (diverse, large enough) that goes through a traditional curriculum. No added class.

Set up a test group (diverse, matched, large enough) that adds the additional class.

Afterwards, present both groups with a battery of defensible and indefensible information, with and without source identification.

See what the statistics say.

Some psychology is hard or impossible to study, but this is relatively straightforward.

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

#330

Post by Nursie » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #321

Nursie wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the non-mainstream is worse. It's like the alt-med argument - sure, point at "big pharma" and tell us how corrupt they are. That doesn't mean homeopathy works.

They trained you to divide the world into two neat and convenient boxes where one box is represented by the NYT and the other box is represented by Alex Jones and flat earthers.

No, 'they' didn't train me to do that, I'm capable of using my brain and evaluating sources. If anything 'they' taught me to examine primary and secondary sources, look for bias, and draw my own conclusions. 'They' also taught me statistics so I can understand the use and misuse of such things by journalists.

I've barely ever come across the NYT in my lifetime, not being American.

Good try though.