Which is an illustration of the issue. Across the country, in pretty much every composition class in every college, we are teaching students to base their arguments on evidence, and to evaluate whether or not their sources have done so. It’s easy enough to look at the average totally faked story and see that there is no source; the evidence cannot be verified. Socalled “trusted” sources cite and link their sources; one can look to them and then see if they are accurate and fairly used.
That’s what it means to demonstrate critical thinking. And THAT’S why college is utterly important in itself, and not just for job training.
However, news media that has a particular bias of some kind can also selectively cite and quote facts and sources to bend the narrative a particular way without putting obvious editorializing into the article, while leaving out those facts and sources that may paint a different picture. This can take a greater degree of skill than just making up fake news.
If the cited and linked sources were methodically and possibly costly investigated, I call the news “trusted”. But news and views are two different things. On Thanksgiving I thank for the existence of a few of such trusted news sources for which I gladly pay to get.
Snopes can be frustratingly vague, when they don’t know.
Garland, agree, people need to not only base arguments on evidence, but to learn question the statements made to them, in the first place. My favorite easy one, you may know, is: “Nine out of ten dentists prefer Crest.” Lol, prefer it over what? The mind fills in gaps and people assume.
But even “trusted” sources can be misinterpreted. Alas. We see this a lot on CC, from seemingly intelligent adult posters, on certain topics.
And people drilled in scientific research principles are not exempt.
Oneof the first principles in social science is to question everything, starting with your own perspective. Hmm.
Quote from response #56: “…much more to the right of the average respondent than the viewers of the other networks are to the left.”
This is a rather nebulous statement IMO. I read the article and was not impressed. How do you quantify political views? What metrics do you use to define “average”? How do you quantity right of “average” and left of “average”? What topics do you define as your base of data? I personally am liberal on some topics and conservative on others.
Too many students are graduating from high school and college with little ability to think critically. I continue to seek colleges and/or professors within those colleges that challenge students to think critically. Critical thinking needs to be taught. Without that skill, one will believe almost anything. One news source I recommend is GlobalResearch.ca http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-dumbing-down-of-america-by-design/5395928
I’ve just been discouraged that literally EVERY time I read a news article about a subject or event I know about, the journalist gets something wrong. 100% of the time. Usually a small detail, but not always.
If the journalists in question are college educated, perhaps they barely paid attention to their general education courses that could have helped them understand something that they are writing about.
I am not too sure I would call these entities deliverers of fake news; I would say they re trafficking in the same take on the news from the same echo chamber from the same point-of-view all reaching the same conclusion(s).
I do find it amazing that it is as if the news agencies you cite above all seem to get a talking point on a particular story and they all use the descriptive adjectives, the same hypotheticals, and same subjective conclusions. Definitely the same thinking going on. What is at issue here is this is the building of narratives, not reporting news.
There is a radio show host that has a ball with this each week and collects montages of the stations and newspapers above and literally they sound identical, even the sentence phrasing is often the same. Funny to listen to, but it explains why, collectively, they are surprised and discouraged when something turns out exactly opposite to what all of them were saying.
More fundamentally, too many consumers of the above confuse opinion with news and many silly / illogical opinions get reported as news and most adults do not know how to discern the difference, much less teenagers.
What makes it even more befuddling is too many reporters report news then intertwine their opinion into the story giving it a bias. And, all to often when I see this, if I ignore the opinion, I reach a different conclusion when just sticking to the news facts of the story.
I first learned this back in 1991. There was mid-air collision at my local airport, and I went down there because I knew a lot of the guys. Sure enough I knew several people in the accident.
I was there when a top local reporter for the metropolitan station asked several of us questions. No big deal. Well, it turned out to be a big deal because no one ever said anything that was actually written in the paper. Everything we said was twisted, interpreted to mean something else etc. That person went on to win a huge journalism award and all I could think was - gees, you could not get even simple sentences straight and the facts we told you correct and you had a recorder in your hand. Never wasted time reading anything else she wrote. That was eye-opening to say the least.
Same here … and at about the same time. I was part of a small team on a large software project at the time and when we released there was a huge inflammatory “hidden message” headline about it in a well known newspaper. The article had quotes from a statistics professor saying how there was a one-in-a-bazillion chance it was unintentional, etc. If you knew who was on the team you’d know how ridiculous the claims were.
That’s why, when I see people here post links to articles from supposedly reputable newspapers and organizations supporting their claims, I have to laugh. Who is the author of the article and what is their agenda?
And two more FB posters posted the same debunked story about CNN supposedly airing porn for 30 minutes which was reported in several [sarcasm]fine[/sarcasm] news sources like the NY Post.
And it was all based on a few tweets from a twitter poster and screenshot which has a high likelihood of being doctored to add to the sensationalism.
And again, both of the credulous posters happen to be 50+, not millenials. Worse, one should have definitely known better considering his educational background(BC Law alum) and career as a well-respected attorney and part-time law Prof at a respectable law school.
One of my teenagers kids told me not to watch CNN and Fox, and probably ABC too during the 2008 or 2012 election season. Not sure she got the opinion from teachers or friends.
I view network TV/cable news channels as news-infused entertainment. I rely much more on national and international* online news sites/dead tree newspapers as main sources of news.
Even so, I doubt their standards have fallen to the point porn would have been aired for 30 minutes without anyone at CNN noticing…or at least thousands of viewers from reporting it to CNN, FCC, and other news sites and it blowing up into a major news scandal worldwide.
BBC, France24, SCMP, Deutche-Welle, Daily Yomiuri, and others.