or famous person from a high‐profile position. The implications of that kind of “surprise” can be life‐changing, and people may need this information so they know how best to respond.
“Surprise” can elicit a simple “I didn't know that” response.
It can also evoke a more powerful “I'm outraged by what I just heard” response.
Should we flee for our lives? Should we stay calm and wait for more clarity? Should we go out and demonstrate in the streets, or should we hide in the basement? The “surprise” response carries with it a greater range of possibilities and excitement, even dangers.
“Delight” is the other side of that informational coin. It connects the news consumer with barely‐known ideas and remote communities that can become recognized and understood thanks to the ability of the news to show how and why there is some degree of resonance. It can be as simple as a community gathering for a street fair to celebrate a local holiday in the neighborhood. It can be a wedding feast in a far‐off village. If reporters do their jobs properly, the foreign can become familiar. And what may have once seemed beyond our reach now enters into our world of understanding. We can share ideas as we see fit. We can take more control of our world, because the unknown has become more familiar. That is what the news is capable of doing at its best and most civic‐minded.
Why the News Has Appeal
Decontextualized information, or information that may be based on references outside of our knowledge or experience, makes no sense to us because the information is too unfamiliar. It is not framed in a way that we can recognize. The absence of cultural signifiers prevents us from understanding why this kind of news is being presented to us. It has little relevance because there is no context. So we click on something else, or turn the page, or switch to another podcast or station. If our imaginations are not engaged, we tend not to care enough to stick with the story.
The “why” of news literacy – and how to achieve it.
We need to know how and why the news came to be an important part of our imaginations and intellect. If the news is to be part of our lives, it needs to be handled carefully, creatively, even skeptically. We need to know where the news comes from, who is creating it, and what their cultural assumptions and motivations are. That way, we, as curious citizens and as news consumers, can make more informed choices about the world around us.
This is where the idea of news literacy comes in.
The concept is not particularly new, but it assumes a sense of urgency in these media‐saturated times. Some examples of institutions working towards promoting news literacy include
the News Literacy Project, designed to help school children assess information on the Internet.
local libraries, such as the state system in North Dakota, which works with readers to guide them on what constitutes reliable information.
the State University of New York at Stony Brook, which has an impressive curriculum that is being taught throughout the university.
various institutions in Europe –the European Centre for News Literacy in Poland, the Reuters Centre for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University, and the Media Studies Department at the London School of Economics.
The Appeal of News Literacy
News literacy is the best way to think about and respond to all the media choices that are available. News literacy is a tool we can use to sharpen our instincts about the news and to sort out the important from the merely interesting. Most of all, news literacy is about sustaining our democratic values by questioning what we consume via various media outlets.
This is not to say that we need to be overly suspicious or cynical. But in this digital food court, not everything on offer is worth consuming. We need to choose wisely. That doesn't mean that our news diet will be exclusively of kale, quinoa, and broccoli. We will need some sweets along the way. Just not perhaps as a main course…
“How Do We Know?”
How do we know what we know? Just because it’s in a newspaper or on a website, does that mean it’s true? Where does this information come from? Is it reliable or merely a bit of unsubstantiated gossip? Why should we trust this information? And what might happen if we don’t ask skeptical and tough questions?
This is what journalists and informed citizens need to ask, both of themselves and of the people who are providing the information. We need to demand that our media be more transparent. This means asking news sources to be open with the public about where the stories are originating, who the sources of information are, and, if the sources can't be identified, why.
We need to question how reporters got their story, who gave it to them, how it was presented, and why it was presented in the form it was presented in. We especially must focus on the why of the famous “who, what, when, where, how, and why” rule of journalism
The Five Ws, are questions whose answers are considered basic in information‐gathering. They include: who, what, when, where, and why. The Five Ws are often mentioned in journalism research and police investigations. They constitute a formula for getting the complete story on a subject. According to the principle of the Five Ws, a report can only be considered complete if it answers these questions starting with an interrogative word:[3]
Who is it about?
What happened?
When did it take place?
Where did it take place?
Why did it happen?
But in the digital age, when the origin of the information may be less evident, we still need to ask an “H” question: “How Do We Know?” This is a more complicated but even more essential question which relates to how news organizations are able or willing to show how a story is reported. This is called media accountability.
Media accountability is an essential requirement, especially with digital media.
Accountability, like transparency, is about acknowledging ownership of the reporting. It allows the public to connect with the news organization directly. This has been done through the comments section found at the close of a report posted online and via letters to the editor in daily newspapers. These allow news organizations to give the public a way to comment on the value of the reporting. It also gives the editors a sense of what works for and with the public. It also gives a sense of interactivity or a connection with the audience. The question is whether this is just a gesture on the part of the news organization, or if it is an effective approach to connecting with the public in this digital era.
Similarly, the role of a public editor, or news ombudsman, has been useful in creating a way in which news consumers can express their opinions and file a complaint about specific coverage. The changing role of the audience as both participant and observer of the news in the digital environment will also be explored in this book.
In the digital era, the news is everywhere. We see headlines on a TV screen or on a front page. We may have a good sense of what is going on even if we don't know the details. Of the Five Ws, we sometimes don't know the “why” of the news. Why did something happen, and what are the implications? In 2006, Bill McKibben wrote about the
