This is a written online discussion assignment. You do not have to turn in anything. The entire assignment will be conducted within this discussion thread. There are 3 parts below that you must answer for full credit. You also must post your responses before you can view others’ responses.
Every day we read news stories that we seek out, that friends and family send us, or that appear in our social media feed. How can we figure out which stories are credible and worthy of our attention? It is also important to know the source of information we see and read. Established news sources will typically have a web address that ends in “.com.” Good journalistic content is also available at .org and .net addresses, but be suspicious and dig deeper when you see an ending other than .com. Of course, all “.coms” are not reliable news sources, this is just a preliminary step to suss out reliability.
Another important aspect is whether the article is news, opinion, or analysis? We often hear that bias is never good. But, we read opinion because it isopinion. The best opinion publishers will label the content as opinion, to alert the reader that the content is the opinion of the writer. Reading a biased article or an opinion piece is not bad or wrong. The important point is to realize what you are reading: Is it a factual news article or an opinion piece to express a point of view. Remember all of these points and answer the questions below.
Question #1:
Go to Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media site where you have an account (if you do not have an account, you can try searching some key terms on any search site). Select twonews stories that show up on your feed. For each, write the title, the author’s name, the date of publication, and the source. Also include what sources the author’s cites in the news article, such who the author spoke to to gain the information or if it was reported by someone else. Also include which social media site where the news stories were posted. Indicate whether the source is a “.com,” “.net,” “.org,” or something else. Next, report two other stories you see on the site. Check the two articles you selected to see if they are labeled as “opinion.” Think about ways you can find out whether the piece is news or opinion, if it is not labeled. What kinds of language in the article might provide a clue as to whether it is news or opinion? Response should be about 3-4 sentences.
For example:
I selected an article from the social media site Twitter. Someone I follow (you do not have to include the person’s name, that is private to you) tweeted a news story, titled, “The city of Philadelphia will pay $2,000,000 to a Black woman who was pulled from a car, beaten by officers and had her toddler used for social media fodder by the police union, officials say.” The link is here: (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/philadelphia-pay-2m-black-woman-beaten-officers-separated-toddler-during-n1279134?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma ).
The article’s author is David K. Li, he is a reporter at NBC online news and the date is Sept. 14, 2021, 11:47 AM CDT . The source of the story is NBC News, at nbcnews.com The article cited the women’s attorney and Philadelphia police officials as the source of his information. NBC news online is “.com”
Story Title #1 and what it is about in one or two sentences. NBC.com home page has a story about a property owner in China that the Chinese government may let collapse. ” A property giant in China is on the brink of collapse.The government might let it fail.”
Story Title #2 and what it is about in one or two sentences. “Democrats gear up to push Biden diplomatic nominees past Republican blocks” Senator Josh Hawley and Senator Ted Cruz are blocking two of Biden’s nominees for diplomats. The news article I selected was not labeled as opinion. The author’s bio line at the very bottom of the article classifies him as ” a breaking news reporter for NBC News.” Both of these clues point to this article being labeled as news.
Part 2:
What are other reputable organizations saying about the source? There are many organizations that access ideological slant of news media, check for bias, and also report on reliability, and accuracy of content. Adfontesmedia.com is one such site that ranks reliability and rates bias. Allsides.com is another good reliable source to analyze news biases. Read some of the articles here. https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/how-to-spot-types-of-media-bias. Finally, Pew Research researched the composition of the typical audience for different news sources.
Question #2: Use the following three sites to locate the news organization’s position on the political or ideological spectrum as posited by these media “watchdogs.”
https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart
https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/?utm_source=HomePage_IMBC_Video_Clip&utm_medium=OnWebSite_Link_and_Button
Where News Audiences Fit on the Political Spectrum
Example:
All Sides Media’s chart indicates that NBC news online is left of center. According to Ad Fontes Media NBC News online is between the center and skewing left, with a rating of -7.38 out of 42 and it has a 45.66 reliability rating out of 64. The reliability rating shows that NBC News falls within both the yellow and green boxes. The chart key tells us that green is “Most reliable for news” and yellow is “Reliable for news, but is high in analysis and opinion content.” Therefore, NBC News intersects with reliability for news (it is inside the green box), but also high in analysis and opinion content (it is also inside the yellow box.) According to Pew Research’s survey 5% of NBC’s audience is consistently conservative, 14% of NBC’s audience is mostly conservative, 39% of their audience is mixed ideology, 26% are mostly liberal, 16% are consistently liberal. That adds up to about 19% of the audience is right of center, 39% is about at the center, and 42% are left of center. The audience skews more left (liberal) and the liberal viewership is double that of conservative viewers but is much closer to the percentage of its mixed or center-minded audience. Overall, conservatives makeup the smallest percentage of the audience.
Part 3
What do you conclude from all the information you gathered? Put together all the parts of the assignment to reach a conclusion on the content of the articles you chose.
Question #3:
Overall, NBC new online appears to be a good source of news. It is also important to keep in mind that this website leans to the left and may contain analysis based on the author’s opinion. Readers should have this information when reading news articles on NBC.com. The author spoke to the people who were involved in the story and quoted them, giving this story more credibility. He also named everyone involved and provided information on some of those involved posts on facebook which can be easily verified. The author also attempted to get all sides of the stories comments. He mentioned that he tried to reach out to representatives of the police, who are on the other side of this case, but they did not reply to him for comment. This to adds to the credibility of the reporting for attempting to allow both sides give their own accounts and was not only trying to present one perspective.
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