has come under criticism for allowing certain political users to spread rumors, false information, and, in some cases, undermine normal political discourse. Twitter works by allowing anyone to spread information, whether real or imaginary. Too often the public, swamped by this flow of content, is unable to find the time verify a tweet or a Facebook posting. Whoever has put this bite of information online is rarely held accountable for the consequences.
How the News Happens Now
But it has not been entirely negative. For journalism, there has been a range of enormous benefits: the ability to connect and to see, hear, and feel what's happening both nearby and far away has truly made our media lives feel as though we live in a global village. We can better understand what life is like (or should be like) in an African village, in an Indian city, in an Indigenous community, in a small town going through massive unemployment. The world and its people are now immediate and available to us in a way that they never were before.
To put it in scientific terms, the Internet delivered the prospect of experiencing life centrifugally. That is to say, in ever‐widening and constantly expanding terms that allow us to better understand what it means to be truly human. This is where the information consumer can find both “surprise” and “delight.” This is the original promise that the Internet made available. If we want it.
At the same time, an opposite tendency is emerging: a centripetal force, which, like an informational whirlpool, pulls us into smaller and smaller comfort zones of recognizable facts and feelings. It disconnects us from that larger world that the Internet promised to deliver. It is a safer way to experience the Internet.
At a time of “informational overload” from the news, many people say they are experiencing a form of “compassion fatigue.” This is the sense that the world and its numerous problems are too much to bear, and that people need to seek relief and escape from the news. This results in the inundation of cat videos, personality quizzes, celebrity news, junk mail, and pornography. These things are made increasingly available through “clickbait,” by which many media, both mainstream and non‐mainstream, try everything to regain the audience (and customers) that have been dispersed by the Internet. “Clickbait” teases and tempts the audience into clicking on a picture or a headline that may promise more (or less) than it should. We'll explore that, too.
News literacy gives us a way of resisting the less‐than‐useful tendencies of modern journalism. It provides the intellectual challenges that can show us why some news is reliable while other news is not.
What's at Stake?
Will we be able to connect with the original promise of the Internet – the promise that the news can make us more free, more democratic, more independent, and more connected? Or will we be moved into smaller and smaller units of self‐reliance, anti‐social behaviors, and disconnection? We will explore how the concept of news literacy can work to support our better social instincts. We will understand how the news works both for us and against us. And we will have the tools to do it properly.
As news organizations on every platform feel the pressure of public scrutiny, all media are attempting to find ways to restore and enhance their reputations with the public. This is not just a matter of holding up the news standards, there is also a financial consequence: it’s called journalistic credibility.
Finding ways to manage the ethical issues around credibility has become a matter of some urgency for many news organizations. As the accusations of bias proliferate from partisan corners of the Internet, journalism has been put on the defensive.
While some news organizations have gone public by placing their ethical guidelines and practices on their websites for all to see, we have also seen a renewed effort by academics to help the public and media organizations find more useful ways of informing the public about best practices when it comes to journalistic and media ethics.
The Scripps Howard School of Journalism at the University of Ohio has been at the forefront of discussions about choosing the best option when confronted with an ethical dilemma. Or in some cases, choosing the least‐worst option.
Another resource is the Potter Box, a model devised by Ralph Potter, Jr., a professor of social ethics at Harvard Divinity School, to sort out the steps one needs to take to come to a proper decision on a complicated ethical matter when the solution is neither easy nor evident.
Potter thought it would be a good way for his students studying moral ethics to come to the right decisions about complicated dilemmas. But it also can work for journalism and the news too.
This is what it looks like:
Ethical Dilemma #1: Reporting on Someone You Know
Using the Potter Box, describe how you might come to a decision on this ethical dilemma:
The president of the Students Union at your university is about to graduate. She is an honors student with a 4.0 GPA. She has been accepted to do graduate work at a prestigious university. But she has been caught drunk driving, and the penalty is severe. She may be sentenced to probation and community service. As a well‐known and popular campus personality, many people would be shocked and surprised if they found out.
You are a reporter for the student newspaper. You get a call from the student president, begging you not to report this story. Her offer to go to graduate school might be withdrawn, and her promising career would be over. She says she is truly sorry for what she has done. She asks you not to do the story.
By show of hands, what does the class think should happen now? Report or not?
Again using the Potter Box, what should your decision be?
Points of Discussion
1 Describe yourself in media terms. What do you read for news? For escape? For enjoyment?
2 Which news organization is most like you? Why?
3 Which news organization do you distrust the most? Why?
4 Which medium do you go to when you first wake up?
5 Keep a diary of all the media you consume over one day. Which ones were most useful? Least useful? Why?
Reference
1 Hare, K. (2020, December 9). Did we just experience the hardest decade in journalism? Poynter. https://www.poynter.org/journalisms‐hardest‐decade/
Additional Resources
Websites and universities promoting news literacy:
The Center for News Literacy, State University of New York at Stony Brook:
1 Center for News Literacy, Stony Brook University School of Journalism. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2020. https://www.centerfornewsliteracy.org
