How to Help Children Develop News Literacy Skills
Helping children develop their news literacy skills is more important than ever, and teaching children to recognize fake news alone is not enough. To develop true news literacy, children must learn deeper strategies than simple fact-checking; they also need to consider how news is collected and presented.
The difficulty that parents can face in teaching their children to find and identify factual and accurate news (as opposed to fake news) is that many adults are not even confident in their own abilities. A recent poll by the Associated Press-NORC and USAFacts Public Relations Research Center found that nearly half of American adults find it difficult to determine if the information they come across is true.
But there are some key elements that parents and children can analyze to understand the fairness, accuracy, and bias of individual stories.
Consider if “ both sides ” should have the same weight
Young journalists are often taught to report impartially from both sides . Whether it’s an article about an election, a debate over whether a new warehouse project should be approved or a school budget cut, reporters should put any personal opinions aside, present facts from both sides, and let readers, listeners, or viewers paint their opinions. own conclusions.
But, as Seth Ashley, professor of journalism at Boise State University, writes for The Conversation , sometimes “both sides” shouldn’t have equal weight:
Even at its best, news is a representation of reality, not reality itself. News producers desperate to understand “both sides” of a story can create false equivalence, as they do on issues like global warming, when only one side is supported by factual evidence. The obsession with balance suggests that there are always two equal and opposite sides to every story, even if they are not.
The mere representation of two parties equally — especially when one side is supported by factual evidence and the other is not — does not accurately reflect the truth. Fair does not always mean equality; children (and adults) should consider when a journalist tries too hard to give equal space to different points of view at the expense of accuracy.
Think “process”, not “product”
Behind every piece of news is a person who decides who to interview for the article, what facts to include, and in what order to present them. If you outsource the same storyline to two different journalists, they will create two different products.
This does not necessarily mean that one is correct and the other is incorrect, but the way the information is presented can lead readers to draw different conclusions. Ashley explains :
News stories are framed in such a way as to influence the way we look at things. For example, when it comes to elections, horse racing coverage prevails. There is a narrow focus on polls and scandals. Actual coverage of politics is often sparse, as was the case during the 2016 elections. News footage can also distort information about minority groups in news coverage, which can create and perpetuate harmful stereotypes.
When you read news articles or watch television news with your children, discuss and ask questions about the process, including who was (or was not) interviewed, or how it might have been done differently. Ask them if they think something important has been overlooked, or if too much emphasis has been placed on certain points.
Practice it yourself
Children will receive their cues from us. When they have questions about something in the news or about a political issue, seek coverage from multiple sources – even sources you usually don’t.
This can illustrate how different sources can present the same story in different ways, and teach them to avoid the confirmation bias that our pre-existing beliefs (and our computer algorithms) tend to do.