It’s true—in this age of Facebook and Twitter, just about anyone can share what they know. And thanks to the internet, that information travels at breakneck speed to potentially global audiences in a single keystroke, but that doesn’t make it journalism. In fact, this phenomenon reinforces why journalists need to distinguish themselves.
Author: Sissel McCarthy
A warm welcome back to all our news literacy students and NewsLiteracyMatters.com subscribers. Spring classes begin today at Hunter College, which means our website is back in business. And just in time for the first-ever National News Literacy Week.
Although some people view TV news anchors as just another pretty face reading the news off a teleprompter, they are real journalists. So if you want to be a news anchor, you’ll need the same skill set as any journalist–plus a few additional ones.
I’m not going to lie—the news industry is in a huge transition. But there is also a case to be made that the industry is starting to reap the benefits of this disruption.
They can try–but they will fail. And that’s not something to bemoan. It’s something to recognize and build on because total objectivity is a myth.
Whether we realize it or not, we have all experienced cognitive dissonance. It is a universal human affliction that transcends culture, race, nationality, and religion. There is no cure, but there are things you can do to treat it.
The short answer is: It depends.
NewsGuard is basically a nutrition label for news on the internet.
The short answer is no, but it’s more complicated than that.
Transparency is the “story behind the story,” and the more a news consumer knows about how a story is put together, the easier it is to evaluate—and trust—that information.
