How to get smart: News literacy programs train readers
to look beyond infotainment
By Kathleen Parker, Published:
July 17
“One such delectable nugget tumbled
recently from the lips of retiring Democratic Rep. Gary L. Ackerman of New
York. Reflecting on his 30 years in Washington, Ackerman was asked to comment
on the relative lack of comity on Capitol Hill. Did it ever exist?
Not really, he said, but
at least Democrats and Republicans used to be friends. Today, crossing the
aisle is tantamount to treason. The problem isn’t only Washington but society
as a whole.
“I think the people have
gotten dumber.”
“Extrapolating, might we conclude that
extreme partisanship is a function of . . .dumbness?
If so, then whose fault is that? Education’s? Surely, at least in part. But the
problem is broader than a single institution. Dumbness permeates every aspect
of our lives, including, dangerously, our media.
Ackerman put it well:
“We now give broadcast licenses to philosophies instead of people. People get
confused and think there is no difference between news and entertainment.
People who project themselves as journalists on television don’t know the first
thing about journalism. They are just there stirring up a hockey game…”
“The NLP (whose board I recently
joined) focuses on school programs for middle and high school students. The
group’s staff includes 22 news organizations and 200 journalists who donate
their time and talents to work with students. Both groups try to answer the
question: How do you find the truth?, and the CNL identifies news as “the
oxygen of democracy.” Indeed, without a well-informed public, you get . . . what we have: a culture that rewards
ignorance and treats discourse as a blood sport.
All freedoms depend
first on freedom of speech, but not all speech is equivalent, no matter how
many hits a Web site boasts or how many viewers ages 25-54 tune in to a given
TV show. By such measures, the sensational will always trump substance.
Unfortunately, the so-called “mainstream media” — that is, old media — have
suffered a crisis of confidence, deservedly in some cases. But in most real
journalism institutions resides a dedication to providing reliable information
according to universally accepted standards and practices. Without them, our
news would be limited to stories about sex, lies and the madam next door.
Cassi Creek: Parker is one of the opinion writers who have
yet to become so polarized that they are no longer journalists. Recall that she warned her political party
about the unsuitability of Sarah Palin.
Parker has now joined the News Literacy Project, hoping to help correct
the inability of our students to separate news from entertainment.
The current junior
high and high school students lack the ability, and perhaps the capacity, to engage
in critical thinking. They lacked this skill
before starting school and they have not been taught the necessity for the
skill or the skill itself. This renders
them largely incapable of winnowing out the chaff that they download in their daily
encounter with education and with life external to schools.
There is a
tremendous need to teach our students how to determine what is true, facts that
can be relied upon when making critical decisions; and what is entertainment
and other dross, base in content and unreliable for any purpose. We have much of the GOP/teavangelist base incapable
and unconcerned that they lack the ability to discern fiction from fact in
their daily near miss with news. These
are the people who vote against tax increases to fund scholastic needs, and who
will vote to raise taxes to support a new football stadium. These are the people who will protest any
classes explaining evolution unless it is offset by the required presentation
of Christian mythology as if it were real.
Compounding
this glaring lack of contact with reality is a change in the assimilation of
news/propaganda among our senior citizens.
The men and women who gave birth to boomers were fortunate to have been
news consumers when Murrow, Cronkite, Brinkley, and the rest who viewed
reporting news as a sacred trust to deliver the truth as a public service were
programming news for a once-a-day schedule.
Facts were checked, opinions were checked at the studio door. The news was as reliable as it could be.
When news
became an around the clock drive for ratings, when physiognomy eclipsed formal
journalism education, when opinion became a marketable product – propaganda disguised
as news and marketed as entertainment, many of our seniors missed the
notice. They were used to believable,
reliable news. Fox News slipped the
change into the daily routine of many people who were not equipped to question “news”
We need to
teach our students how to search for the truth in news. They need to learn how to read books for
information. Tweets and other broadcasts
designed to fit another attention hole in a 20 something misdiagnosed with ADD
instead of an actual chronic sugar/caffeine overload, are not sufficient information
to claim that one is well educated. Witness
if you will, Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, ranting against the process of
education and the educated as elitists rather than simply admitting that they
missed the boat and the book.
I’m going to
look into the News Literacy Project.
Perhaps it is another tool that can be used in the hope of preventing
the former middle class from voting against its own self-interest. Literacy is often feared by plutocrats,
oligarchs, and other repressive political parties. Is it any wonder that the teavanagelists are
intent upon defining educated Americans as an “elitist enemy?”
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