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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 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.

It definitely included examples of bad reporting from all sorts of sources, because the message is that its ideas are applicable to any source of information.

Ideas: https://www.centerfornewsliteracy.org/what-is-news-literacy/

Class: https://www.centerfornewsliteracy.org/stony-brooks-center-fo...

> 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'm all for it. 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. One also wonders what's going on in journalism programs around the country that is allowing for so much unabashedly propagandist content to be pushed out under the guise of "journalism"?

I also took News Literacy at Stony Brook in 2013. I think that was one of the more popular classes for students by then, especially since it allowed students to choose which gen ed humanities requirement (out of two) to satisfy that was otherwise a bit tedious to get.

Most people I know who went into the course just for credits came out with a greater appreciation for the course in general.

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).

I learned to think critically about what I read from one specific incident. There was a local story about a high-school football game that afterward there was widespread vandalism and high levels of aggression/violence.

I was at that game, it it was all very normal, maybe with higher than average attendance, leaving a bit of a mess. The only way I could imagine the news being written as it was, was that the reporter wasn't there, talked to a few people, and extrapolated making the story exciting. There may also have been a motivation to make a school look bad. In any case, the jig was up for the value of in-black-and-white.

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 about news literacy here, and I'm sure most of the people at NPR "know" how to be critical, but their level of reporting often doesn't reflect that.

For another example, there's a podcast I listen to by journalists that often point out poor reporting and misinformation spread by other journalists. But they'll usually uncritically repeat the "common sense/everyone knows" ideas that permeate the media outside of their wheelhouse. I only saw a realization of this issue once, when they were talking about the Gell-Mann Amnesia affect, then a couple of minutes later were talking about news reports showing XYZ, and they gave some throw away disclaimer to the effect of "although, I suppose going by the Gell-Mann Amnesia idea, we perhaps shouldn't trust these reports 100%."

In the end, it seems that news for most people serves as a form of infotainment. Infotainment that spreads a lot of disinformation, but leaves people with the illusion they're informed. I think most people would do well to take a few months off from the news and see how it effects the things they actually have control over (usually a lot less than they assume), or how out of place they'll feel when they jump back in (usually not much, since it seems most news items are forgotten within a few weeks).

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!

Thank you for contributing something positive and informative!
> It was taught in more the general sense of how to apply critical thinking to judge news stories.

Critical thinking is a general thing, not something for news stories. Besides the idea that school teach critical thinking in anything is laughable in this day and age.

What should be taught is history of news and why it exists. Not how to decipher good "news" from bad "news" because there is no good or bad "news". There is only agenda. Schools should also teach the history of modern school systems and the education department. Quite eye opening.

By your comment, it's apparently clear you didn't learn anything valuable in your class. But then again, it's Stony Brook.

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. It seems to me that students’ main takeaway from this course would be to trust NPR, NYT and the like, rather than viral content. Which is of course great for NPR, but doesn’t help when your “trustworthy” media selection decide to suppress all arguments from another side, or remain silent on certain stories altogether.

Note: This comment was expanded a few times, but the gist remained the same.

Edit: No, I’m not saying “trust NPR, NYT and the like instead of viral content you see on Facebook” isn’t a good takeaway. I’m saying the more effective type of propaganda (at least for people who don’t tend to fall for the obvious crap) isn’t discussed.

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 school to ever touch such topics.

This is as comforting as hearing that schools are teaching religion.

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 subjective. From there on, you can start to make up an opinion as to whether a source is “good” or “bad,” or neutral or biased. Good teachers will try to keep politics out of it, but there are definitively examples of teachers who for whatever reason keeps a political slant. In theory they could lose their job if they're caught indoctrinating their pupils, but in reality it's almost never an issue. On the other hand, in today's hyper-politicized world, I trust that most of the pupils quickly catch on if they try.
This discussion (like many on HN) is a good example of the tool of skepticism about sources:

Almost every HN thread has a large proportion of attacks on the source and/or their methods. But interestingly, much of it is not (IME, IMHO) 'news literacy' or skepticism, it's the opposite:. Distrusting everyone is as unskeptical and illiterate as trusting everyone.

Skepticism requires examination of the facts, critical thought, and skepticism about ourselves and our own arguments and facts too. The results aren't simple, but nuanced: 'The report is this degree of good in that way, and that degree of bad in this way.' One potential signal is that if it doesn't add nuance it's not really critical thinking.

Also, if it repeats something we've already heard many times - memes, politicized talking points, etc. - it's not critical thinking. Finally, every work of humanity is flawed; critical reading is finding what we can gain from it, despite the flaws. Given the inescapable truth of our flaws, that is the only way we move forward.

I loved kebman's summary of the what they learned in Norway: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28168435

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.

While this might be the first time a state has put this in the curriculum, I can say as the son of a school librarian that news and primary source disinformation/literacy education has been a standard among more forward-thinking library programs for the last 5-10 years. The need to have students be able to find a piece of information and then critically assess the validity of it, and if necessary explore alternate sources is a really important part of good research skills in the modern era.

In fact, when my mother got her masters of library science, I was suprised at how much of the curriculum was basically 101-level comp sci- databases, Unix, basic programming, Internet tech, etc. Being a school librarian is basically about Internet and news trust, maker tech, and research skills, rather than books and literacy.

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 think there's merit to deliberately teaching concepts like analyzing the source of a particular news story. Coincidentally, it was an AP Euro course I took at my Illinois Highschool that first made me aware of such a concept. My teacher put a special emphasis on analyzing bias in source documents that were provided in the document based questions in the AP exam.

I may not remember much of the European history taught in the class, but the idea of analyzing bias has stuck with me ever since. My experience may have not been universal amongst my classmates though which exposes how this type of incidental teaching to analyze bias might be insufficient and a more intentional approach is warranted.

The fact that I was taught the concept in a history class devoted to a different continent helped to mitigate some of the problems that might present themselves when trying to teach it in the context of current events. My hope would be that this type of news literacy education would similarly focus on historical accounts which, while not wholly sufficient, could create some distance between the daily news onslaught which can distract from actually developing the skill.

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.

I think the full text of the bill is only a handfull of paragraphs modifying an existing law: https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&Sessi...

I try to summarize below by skipping some extra words:

"media literacy" means the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and communicate using ... print, visual, audio, interactive, and digital texts.

every public high school shall include ... a unit of instruction on media literacy [to] include:

... Evaluating ... the general landscape and economics of the platforms, [and] issues regarding the trustworthiness of the source of information.

... Deconstructing media representations according to the authors, target audience, techniques, agenda setting, tereotypes, and authenticity to distinguish fact from opinion.

... Conveying a coherent message ... to a specific target audience.

... Assessing how media affects the consumption of information and how it triggers emotions and behavior.

... Suggesting a plan of action ... to engage others in a respectful, thoughtful, and inclusive dialogue over a specific issue ...

Make sure you begin your class by playing this clip? I found it pretty eye opening:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI&feature=youtu.be

Description: dozens/hundreds of newscasters reading the exact same script.

The core of the course should be critical thinking, with a heavy lean in on problem solving. The passive consumption of "stuff" - whether that's food or information - is the basis for so many of our so called crisises.

But - warning: editorial - The System is intentional in creating this mindless mindset. Not to worry Big * has it covered. Don't think. Just follow contentional wisdom, follow the narrative.

Moi? I spend a fair amount of time reading / listening / watching for what isn't said. This forces me to duck the click bait, hyperbole, sensationalism, etc. So often there are obvious questions that are ignored. That's a tell. I'm also recommend becoming hypersensitive to language and words. When there are big sweeping phrases (e.g., "everybody...") it's another tell.

To all the commenters critical of this idea, what do you suggest as an alternative? I don't think letting kids belive that Facebook/Reddit/TikTok memes are valid news sources is a great course of action either.
If anyone here is interested in learning media literacy, or knows someone who is, there's a really nice video series from Crash Course here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPwJ0obJya0&list=PL8dPuuaLjX...

I highly recommend it - teenagers, students, adults - it's for everyone!

People always say fact check the news they might be biased etc, when this is nothing new, even in the US. "The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Thomas Jefferson"

This thread makes me think I'm crazy, because I remember "news literacy" being taught in high school in the early 90s: we looked at newspaper and magazine articles, and evaluated the slipperiness of their wording, noted whether and what kind of sources they relied on, etc.

I distinctly remember realizing for the first time that you could tell a lie with a graph. I also remember seeing an "article" that was actually a disguised advertisement, which I would probably have overlooked in the past. Good class.

So, to me this doesn't seem new, but it seems like not everybody had that experience.

Still, I think the point of this article is not that schools have not taught those skills in the past, but that those fundamental literacy skills are now identified as 1) more important and tricky than ever, and 2) now there's a (branded) name for them.

News literacy is critical for future students. I think one thing I learned in middle school and not sure they even teach anymore is advertising techniques, like:

Bandwagon

Testimonial

Emotional Appeal

Humor

Anti-bandwagon

Slogan

Glittering Generality

Product Comparison

Repetition

Weasel Words

Understanding the basic construction of ads can help people understand when they are "being sold something" as opposed to informed.

I'm only a two chapters in at the moment, but am enjoying the book Flat Earth News by Nick Davies. While I believe he has rose-tinted glasses for pre-1980s journalism, and his information and analysis is UK-centric, one of his conclusions is apt.

The majority of journalists end up spending almost no time generating their own stories, or even checking them. Most of what you read in broadsheet newspapers is just parroting wire services, PR firms, the government, etc. Davies commissioned studies showing only 12% of stories in major broadsheets in 2 random weeks were generated by the journalist, and only 12% of the key facts were checked. He calls this churnalism, and it goes a ways to showing how it is that these institutions set the bounds for "acceptable" discourse, without any conspiracy -- just don't hire enough journalists and make them too busy to do the real work. Eventually the new cohort will think they're doing real work anyway.

I should say, I don't know the basis for Davies' critique of wire agencies, or why it is important to generate one's own stories. I haven't read the Suppliers chapter yet.

Side note - I wonder how they'll treat Wikipedia in these classes. When I was in high school (<2016), they were still telling us not to use Wikipedia because "anybody can edit it" and the librarian once saw the Amerigo Vespucci page had been edited to say he was the "King of Grapes".
Just ask a random journalist who thinks he's some Democracy Defender when was the last time any of his research uncovered some corruption scandal in any branch of the government or powerful financial or banking institution. Given that most news agencies depend on either publicity, or their billionaire owners to survive, it's not like they're intrinsically trustworthy.

Most of them are as brainless as the average news reader, quite more of a zealot for the system they're supposed to scrutinise than an impartial informer of daily events.

Just check most journalists' twitter accounts.

you don't need a new school course to know that you should always double check anything you read and try to go to the primary sources directly.

It’s interesting to drive these trends forward a few years.

Since time at school is zero sum, every political victory that results in a new pet topic being taught will inevitably shrink core education.

Maybe this trend helps explain events like this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.oregonlive.com/politics/202...

Most of the first graders I know can read, it can be hard to fathom how you make it 12 years without knowing that…

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.

This will end up teaching "news literacy" just like how the "Patriot Act" was, you know, patriotic, and the "Affordable Care Act" made health care affordable.
News sources which print, voice, or provide air time to outright lies and fabrications are still considered news right?

Consider CNN calling out the times: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/05/10/ny.times.reporter...

After fraud is discovered, the public forgets and then the "news" continues.

The risk of propaganda is too large in any direction to start with news/journalism. Taking different path, if students are taught to challenge/accept/refute ideas in high school science, mathematics, history and economics they learn invaluable skills is far less political charged environments and can then apply those skills to critical analysis of political and journalistic content.
What? Now I kinda understand why USA is so fucked up.
Someone should make an online version of this course. It could be widely useful. I just have to figure out how to enroll my parents now …
News literacy is a skill that’s just as important as critical reading. Thankfully, I don’t think that implementing curriculum should be too difficult, given that in many ways, it’s a complementary skill.

Now I don’t know if we add it into the SAT / ACT, but it should at least have some dedicated time set aside for it in History/Language Arts courses.

This is a sign of a bigger problem. Why is it that journalism schools are failing so bad that news readers have to do their work for them?

It's like expecting users of software to learn about good software engineering practices to make sure the apps they download are worth using and won't cause any harm to their machines.

My daughter’s private school invests quite a bit of effort in teaching critical thinking and source criticism. It’s a little odd that their generation already seems thoroughly cynical as it is, then again they were raised with the internet. They don’t believe anything. They think the world is corrupt. Example: Young women it seems were more “red pilled” by the Epstein fiasco than most adults (perhaps because they identify more with the victims).

This gives me hope. The boomers’ blind allegiance to their news sources and political parties has allowed evil to flourish unopposed.

Hasn’t this always been taught? Like—what was “critical thinking”? Just so disappointed. Education really is terrible in general. Very few seem to be able to apply their skills in different areas. Sort of like how I was only able to solve a particular kind of math problem but when it was rephrased…kaput.
I can summarize the class. Don't trust the news. They have financial incentives to emotionally outrage their audience. There is no such thing as an unbiased source. Only trust video evidence, and only that sparingly
I don't see the point of this. a typical English class should already be teaching one how to critically think anyway and engage with text. There's no need for a specific "news literacy" course IMHO.
Growing up in Illinois and going to public schools, I have to say this is just making the situation worse.

My wife (who went to the same school district) and I both recall situations where politics were in the classroom. I recall in grade school with vivid detail my teacher saying “anyone who voted for bush is an idiot” and kids in the class becoming upset and the teacher doubling down. My entire time at school (through college) conservatives were demonized. Quite literally, I watched teachers call them evil. Anyone who spoke out would get punished. You could see the unequal treatment.

Conservatives are against equality, their racists, they cut education budgets, etc. when have any one here seen positive discussion about conservatives in your lives? think about it.

Just last year, during the pandemic, my wife’s younger brother was doing a zoom class behind me. His teacher was telling the students in home economics that “we need to reduce taxes or give universal income to black people”. She went on and on about inequity and how whites were evil.

I’m sure some of you believe I’m being hyperbolic, but here’s a near by school district:

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/06/critical-race-theory-i...

This will be just a further weapon to indoctrinate and marginalize. People I know in the younger generations (in their 20s) who are conservatives are scared to speak and have been for years.

Now let’s consider something they may teach.. are they going to teach to check citations? I want you to open CNN or MSNBC right now, look at a few articles and check the citations. You’ll see why this is a problem.

One of the best descriptions I have read of modern journalism’s impact on people is as follows:

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” - Michael Crichton

This is a terrible idea. A lot of people are failing to realize that this is a bad precedent.

Even though the article spends most of the time talking about an example orthogonal to politics, it is clear that politics will be the main topic of this course. I have zero faith in the system to show the numerous examples of bad articles by the NYT, WP, NPR... anybody remembers the Covington kid?

The issue goes beyond self criticism of course. The state should not play a role in telling kids what they should or shouldn't read as a news source - because that's what will end up happen. I have zero faith that such class will actually engage in fruitful debates.

It's pretty simple really- don't trust anything you read online unless you have a good reason to do so. You'll build up sources you trust over time
No one else concerned it can (and why would there be any doubt it will) be used to get future generations to think the correct way?

No? Okay, nevermind then..

Anecdotally, I see younger people show a much higher skepticism for face news in general.

It's their teachers and parents who need educating about news literacy!