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

#421

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

Jarwain wrote: post #378

Consultant32452 wrote: post #203

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.

Isn't the idea not about instilling trust in specific news sources, but teaching how to recognize a good source or critically thinking about and comparing different sources?

No. At best you get Chomsky's manufactured consent. You get to compare the NYT article to the WaPo article and decide which one has the best information, and you may argue vigorously within that narrow window. You will never be allowed to cite "unapproved" sources in school. You usually won't even be able to cite something like wikileaks except in the context of how an approved source wrote an article about them.

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

#422

Post by elliekelly » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #350

JamesBarney wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalism is changing. And to pretend like it's not is adding fuel to the fire. Younger journalists are less likely to see their job as being a neutral arbiter of truth and more likely to see themselves as part of the culture war. I'm a liberal but just as the ACLU is not the same organization it was 20 years ago, neither is The Gray Lady.

I think we're also increasingly seeing journalistic "power" consolidating on the coasts, in the bluest of blue districts (of course the most prestigious newspapers have always been coastal, but they've grown in prevalence while regional newspapers have fallen). This means that journalists for the largest publications are overwhelmingly far more left-wing than the rest of the country.

Have you read the WSJ lately? They’re a prestigious paper in a “blue” coastal city and they’re definitely not what I would call left wing.

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

#423

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #330

Consultant32452 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sometimes people use concrete examples to explain abstract concepts. If the concrete examples aren't a part of your culture, the underlying abstract argument is disproven.

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

#424

Post by throwaway894345 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #412

throwaway894345 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not surprising that universities are more left-leaning when the right has taken a stance against higher education and pushes anti-intellectualism for political gain. People do realize that you don't have to choose between the regressive, anti-intellectual right and the regressive, anti-intellectual left, correct? Every time someone criticizes the left, some left-wing person argues that the right-wing is worse…

A little confused: We do or don't have to choose? I agree with 'don't'; the idea that everything is politicized propaganda is a tool of the propagandists, like a liar saying 'everyone lies'.

We do not have to choose. The far-left/far-right dichotomy is a false dichotomy.

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

#425

Post by Stupulous » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #407

throwaway894345 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, conservatives have moved far rightward, which might make others relatively more leftish. I don't think this is true, I think the left-wing media has fixated increasingly on the far-right or exaggerating the extent to which individuals on the right are "far-right" which gives the impression that the right is drifting, but it's just the media changing how it represents the right. To be clear, the right is chang…

I would summarize the drift as far-right voices are getting louder (in terms of air time / reach) and centrist-right voices are getting quieter. On the left, far-left voices are also getting louder, but I don't think the centrist-left voices have gotten quieter as much as their centrist-right counterparts. The end result is that "the right" seems more right (in terms of speech) while "the left" seems... conflicted (i…

If a journalistic institution's goal is to advocate for a side, they are motivated to report on when the other side is doing something radical and not when they're doing something sensible. The opposite for the side you're supporting.

I don't know if it's more or less charitable to suggest that they're primarily driven by revenue. The incentives are basically the same in that model, except the lean is audience-generated rather than centrally controlled. You'd expect more extreme positions on both sides, which is consistent with what you're saying.

A combination of both best fits the evidence, I think. You write controversial articles about both sides to get clicks, and write about the center of your side to get political support. So you get people on both sides with very skewed views (the far) of the other, and who think of their own side as idealogically diverse (the far) but grounded in reality (the center). If the media landscape is primarily liberal, you'd expect it to look the way you're describing it.

I really like that conclusion, because it's perfectly consistent with my experience. I don't really have evidence to support this, though, and I'm not sure how to go about getting any.

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

#426

Post by simiones » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #287

simiones wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=india+worker+protests+site%3Anytim... I didn't see the New York miner protests in the NYT in a quick search, but I lack search terms and time. Do you mean the protests in…

> https://duckduckgo.com/?q=india+worker+protests+site%3Anytim...

I am talking about the 2020 general strike(s) (trade unions estimate 250 million people joined, though others push for much smaller numbers): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_general_strike_of_2020.

I have not found a single article about this in the NYT, BBC, Washington Post. The Guardian in the UK did cover these.

> Do you mean the protests in support of Alabama miners?

Yes, I mixed things up a bit. I have not been able to find an article about either the strike, nor the NYC protests about it. Rather amusingly, looking for UMWA or Alabama miner strikes, there are several articles about this, from ~1900s.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Alabama+miner+strike+site%3Anytime...

The main point I was making is that there is systematic bias on certain topics - especially workers' rights - in mainstream publications. There are other such topics as well, usually to do with the nitty gritty of US imperialism.

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

#427

Post by ethbr0 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

Stupulous wrote: post #425

ethbr0 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would summarize the drift as far-right voices are getting louder (in terms of air time / reach) and centrist-right voices are getting quieter. On the left, far-left voices are also getting louder, but I don't think the centrist-left voices have gotten quieter as much as their centrist-right counterparts. The end result is that "the right" seems more right (in terms of speech) while "the left" seems... conflicted (i…

If a journalistic institution's goal is to advocate for a side, they are motivated to report on when the other side is doing something radical and not when they're doing something sensible. The opposite for the side you're supporting. I don't know if it's more or less charitable to suggest that they're primarily driven by revenue. The incentives are basically the same in that model, except the lean is audience-genera…

That's a great perspective, and seems both logically consistent and supported by current reality.

The "your centrist, but no other" political motivation (even if not economic) is a piece I missed.

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

#428

Post by ErikVandeWater » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

refenestrator wrote: post #324

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They decided not to collect the evidence. Much more pressure could have been put on China to make the lab and its records available for review.

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

#429

Post by paul7986 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #398

paul7986 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive shared my view on media here before and always get downvoted. That is fine tons and tons of people hook themselves up their boogeyman of choice (Faux News, MSNbsee, C&N, NewsMax, EpochTimes, etc, etc .. all media driven by dollars and making investors and or their parent companies raking in the dough) and let it control their lives. After two months into the pandemic I was done with it and went about living my li…

On the matter of changing guidance, I think the pandemic exposed the public's ignorance of real science. Science is a verb , not a noun . It's easy to forget that when it's taught as a series of facts, pre-discovered long ago. Most students are never faced with the unknown edge of science (until grad school). Because fundamentally, usefully , that's what science really is -- a method for systematically exploring the…

Exactly it's not just right yet ..time will make it right.

If you believe everything you are hearing as fact one day the facts change/the science which it does then cool.. I'm on the fence waiting with a mask on as needed to hear the real science and facts as of now they change quickly so and again I'm waiting for it all to work itself out. Not anti vaxxer or anti science here just a realist

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

#430

Post by janeroe » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #344

janeroe wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I thought your "tax cuts not paying for themselves" is a figure of speech. And that's a literal quote. What is it supposed to mean? Like if you steal less from the people, you get less if that's your only source?

"Tax cuts pay for themselves" has been the conservative justification for how cutting taxes on the wealthy is fiscally conservative and actually benefits everyone, for ~4 decades.

I'm not an American so have no this Democrats vs. Republicans dichotomy, cheering or deriding the very same decisions depending on whether they're coming from "our" or "their" people (as in "He's a Son of a Bitch, but he's OUR Son of A Bitch").

I can afford to be more consistent. What attracted my attention to your post specifically (knock at conservative values aside) is the mentioning of tax cuts as if that's something terribly wrong. It's not.

The paper you've linked that allegedly is supposed to impress Americans, wouldn't anyone else. Authors' assumption for some reason (was it what Republicans promoted?) is that government doesn't have to be more thrifty and less wasteful. It reads: look, the government was just an inefficient juggernaut as usual, and the tax cuts put this behavior under risk.

Insatiable appetites of governments aside, tax cuts do pay off. And not only economically, but also in terms of bringing greater justice and better satisfaction of all but communists.