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Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a sec

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public school to ever touch such topics. This is as comforting as hearing that schools are teaching religion.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Yep, the news has become just propaganda... no responsibility, no nothing. But people like to consume stuff they believe in...
- chrononaut 5y ago
  > "has become" Was there a time when it wasn't? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias#History
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    The media has had a "golden age", where the largest vehicles did research and presented well fundamented ideas. It lasted for at least a few decades, as it was visibly improving at the 40's and was still very good at the 80's. Things were never perfect, of course. And we have never had as many facts available to reach our own conclusions (so, it's arguable if people are less or more informed today), but looking only at the media, things weren't always that bad.
cool_dude85 5y ago
From NPR's reporting, it seemed like the class was more about looking for additional sources or examining sources. I'm sure the students could find tons of examples of NPR's nonsense using these methods. Especially relevant is checking photos or videos accompanying articles, the main example given in the report, cause all the big players get caught on this one constantly.
Alex3917 5y ago
> this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Media literacy classes have already been shown to turn some percentage of kids into nazis no matter how you teach them, so any particular bias that might be getting instilled probably doesn’t matter too much. If you tell kids to “Go on YouTube and do your own research about the Jews,” then whatever the teacher thinks stops being relevant after about 30 seconds. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I7FVyQCjNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I7FVyQCjNg
- Ragnarork 5y ago
  > Media literacy classes have already been shown to turn some percentage of kids into nazis Quite a claim. Where has this been shown?
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > If you tell kids to “Go on YouTube and do your own research ..." That's not what is being taught, according to the article.
  - Alex3917 5y ago
    Of course it is. The entire premise of "media literacy" is that what the mainstream media is telling you might not be true, so you should do your own research. Which of course is accurate, but at the same time a lot of people would be better off just blindly trusting the media.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      The article says otherwise. Could you provide have evidence of your claims? > The entire premise of "media literacy" is that what the mainstream media is telling you might not be true For example, the class studied a video that spread on Facebook, not in the mainstream media, for misinformation.
      - Alex3917 5y ago
weimerica 5y ago
Don’t forget that COVID isn’t a threat and to head on down to all the nice restaurants in Chinatown!
- altcognito 5y ago
  It will be over in April! A lot of people were just wishing it away
  - vmception 5y ago
    I've run into a variety of people that made savings, travel and career choices based on that idea, and it wasn't good for them. Of course they were from the midwest and so likely all of their influences would have been reinforcing the words of the President, but I also don't understand how that would be convincing, given how viruses work. Given how this virus works and spreads.
    - caseysoftware 5y ago
      We were also told "two weeks to stop the spread!" by the CDC and most major news sources. "two weeks" from mid-March would be April "stop the spread" could reasonably interpreted as "we won, all is well" Therefore, it's easy to see why people - including Trump - would be convinced this would all be done in April 2020.
      - vxNsr 5y ago
        Not to mention China seemed to have mostly eradicated it by mid-March by simply shutting down for a few weeks. They still seem to have very few cases, many ppl don’t believe their reporting anymore, but at the time it really did look like a quick shutdown would end it.
      - Izkata 5y ago
        It was "slow the spread" or "flatten the curve", not "stop the spread". The goal was to prevent the hospitals from being overrun while we built extra capacity, after which that extra capacity would allow us to go back to normal. Instead, the extra capacity barely got used and was dismantled a month or two later.
throwawayswede 5y ago
Absolutely. This is somewhat similar to terms like "scientific creationism". It has nothing to do with science. From what I read in the article, this "news literacy" is more like pseudo-literacy, and similar to "scientific creationism", it lacks empirical support and cannot be meaningfully tested.
kiwih 5y ago
I did a module on news literacy at my public high school (not in USA). It typically involved taking some notable story and examining material from every publisher that had written on it. We examined both recent affairs (previous 2-3 years) and historical (women's right to vote, native people's/colonial affairs) and how they were covered in the media at the time. It was a fascinating thing to be taught about, and had a big focus on critical thinking - not just "what is written" but "why is it written this way", "what does the publisher want you to take from this". When the lab leak theory emerged/was initially dismissed, I was actually reminded of my lessons from high school.
- flir 5y ago
  Part of A Level English Language for me. How to read critically, really. It's the old "freedom fighter vs terrorist" exercise. Of course, this was pre-Internet and the focus was on written English... it's not like we were taught (say) how video editing can control perceptions.
- 3pt14159 5y ago
  Yeah we had this at my private religious high school in Canada as part of civics class. It didn't really have a right or left bend, it focussed on critical thought, sourcing (anonymous sources vs named, credentialed source), fact verifiability, and reputation. Especially with what the internet has done to news this really should be taught in schools everywhere.
haswell 5y ago
It seems like we read different articles. My takeaway is that they’re trying to teach students how to identify bad sources/reporting or outright fake news, not litigate specific news reports. Using 2016 as an example doesn’t invalidate that goal or imply bias.
- chitowneats 5y ago
  Hunter Biden's laptop falls under this category. Corporate media and social media companies claim "fake news" and move to censor it a month before the election. An honest look at the actual reporting, as well as what followed, shows that this was not in fact the case.
  - long_time_gone 5y ago
    ==shows that this was not in fact the case.== What was not in fact the case? Can you share your evidence?
  - avs733 5y ago
    As someone who actually engaged with that story, I found the reporting and posited facts to be incoherent and full of holes. It only made sense if one presumed the outcome. Literacy includes evaluating why something was covered by certain folks and not by others as well as the internal coherence and the inter-relationship.
    - janeroe 5y ago
      > As someone who actually engaged with that story, I found the reporting and posited facts to be incoherent and full of holes. Was the story of Russians electing Trump coherent and without holes?
      - Shared404 5y ago
        https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... It has real evidence. I can hunt down more if you like.
SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
I read the article and I disagree that the 2016 election is a specific example of what students in class actually learn about (which is what I interpreted when you said “used on the kids”). The 2016 example is actually part of a study to claim there is evidence that students have poor ability to discern from good quality and bad quality news sources, such as a video of dubious origin on Facebook. The actual examples used in class was influencers talking about nutrition and a teacher talking about jan 6 being controversial in the class. And I think your concern that news literacy may be defined too simplistically in the classroom is valid but your reading of the article seems to have poor comprehension.
- Consultant32452 5y ago
  An important part of indoctrination is training children that only regime approved news sources are reliable.
  - long_time_gone 5y ago
    Didn't you study the difference in quality versus non-quality sources as a child? I remember lots of term papers where my references were questioned and only references of certain quality were allowed.
    - Consultant32452 5y ago
      Yes, that's exactly the training I was referring to.
      - long_time_gone 5y ago
        Are you suggesting that all sources are exactly equal? If not, then people need a framework to determine source quality, otherwise we aren't really preparing them for the world. What is your proposal?
        Consultant32452 5y ago
temp8964 5y ago
Will they discuss Roland Fryer’s finding against the misinformation regarding to police shootings? https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evi... Who is using selective reporting to create a false narrative for what purpose?
- mc32 5y ago
  There has to be some coordination, if suddenly all the protests and antifa demonstrations stopped seemingly overnight in news reporting. I would be surprised if interactions with police quite suddenly turned less confrontational. People still do things to attract police intervention and police still respond and have to leverage lethal force, but we don't hear that much about it in the media. so, what gives?
  - majormajor 5y ago
    Police lethal force is still covered whenever it happens in my local paper. The protest coverage faded out over time; anecdotally, so have the protests I've seen while driving around town.
nkozyra 5y ago
> Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? I suppose you have to pick an example to work from and frankly, the 2016 election was the most noteworthy and groundbreaking disinformation campaign. A teacher could certainly talk about the latter, but neither Hunter Biden's laptop and Lab Leak Theory have the bulk of documentation to point to.
HarryHirsch 5y ago
This is as comforting as hearing that schools are teaching religion. You could have spared yourself that dig, it's beside the point and stupid. The comparison with religion is actually good. In some countries religion is taught in school because religion is part of human culture, which is firmly within the bailiwick of school. So teachers teaching religion must be accredited by both the government (for competency) and by their religious authority (for adherence to dogma). That's good, because you know who they answer to, and since religious authorities are usually mainstream you won't get revolutionaries or apocalyptic types either. But reading the news in school, it's like the Soviets teaching how to trust Prawda.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > So teachers teaching religion must be accredited by both the government (for competency) and by their religious authority (for adherence to dogma). That's good, because you know who they answer to, and since religious authorities are usually mainstream you won't get revolutionaries or apocalyptic types either. Religious authorities have a long history of oppressing free thought, including questioning the authority or tenants of the religion, and rationality, such as science. I would not say they are usually 'mainstream', unless we circularly define mainstream as whatever the religion says.
- Vaslo 5y ago
  I’m sure all the sources will be “neutral” given the far left leaning of the teachers union.
  - simiones 5y ago
    Neutrality is an irrelevant goal. It's quite possible for the conclusions of critical thinking to fall on the left or the right - even the extremes of either. Falling for the center narrative is no more uncritical than falling for any other.
- trasz 5y ago
  First, the parts of religion that are a part of human culture are usually not religious at all. That’s what the “cultural Christian”, or “Christian atheist” means. What happens in schools in countries like Poland is a religious indoctrination, and usually focuses on promoting social pathologies, such as denying reproductive rights and spreading hate speech against minorities. Second, again using Poland as an example, this is largely outside of government control: the state cedes all authority about this part of schooling to Church, and Church is free to choose whatever propagandists it likes.
pndy 5y ago
If the English lessons in the US are covering text analysis, reading comprehension then nothing stops teachers or whoever is responsible for managing the curricula to include issues like fake news, propaganda in today's media - especially in the virtual forms. Of course this might look easy on the paper and be hard to achieve in reality.
refenestrator 5y ago
That lab leak theory is the most amazing example of widespread bias on all sides I've ever seen. We went from it being banned on Facebook to it having mainstream acceptance in like a week despite ZERO change in the underlying evidence. The evidence was always just "well there's a lab there". The only thing that changed was Trump isn't president anymore. It's the perfect rorschach issue for underlying bias, free of any clearcut facts that might be evaluated neutrally.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  There was that scientist who said it wasn't a lab leak but it turns out he may have been paid by China.
  - refenestrator 5y ago
    May have! And how would he know anyways? He can't prove a negative. If someone had collected US research grant money and went the other way would we call them 'paid by America'? Like I said. The perfect rorschach issue.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I've always been of the opinion that a lab leak is certainly possible, but still very unlikely. It's been wild seeing this rollercoaster that is entirely based on media coverage without one shred of evidence either way. Very disenchanted with the media over the last 5 years, and it did not used to be this bad.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ErikVandeWater 5y ago
  The coverup with a man who authorized the funding for the lab being the only American on the WHO scientific panel investigating the lab was the smoking gun for me. It really doesn't matter if it came from the lab or from the environment. The fact that they covered it up shows the lab was breaking protocols and they believed it could have been the lab that released the virus. The lab needs to be shut down and similar labs shut as well to institute a major overhaul of the system.
markus_zhang 5y ago
They should teach independent thoughts. Sadly this is so inconvenient for most of the adults.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  It's nice to dream about but it will never happen. The incentives are all wrong for public education to teach critical thought. The politically appointed or "hired by reference" committees and/or teams of bureaucrat that are responsible for setting curriculum at the state level would never do that because then they'd have to answer to politicians on both sides of the isle for making their job harder. People operating at these levels of bureaucracy don't need to be told what the boss wants, they read the room and know in which direction they should be erring. Your career doesn't take you through those sorts of positions that far if you're not the kind of person who does that. Furthermore, the career arc of someone who believes that society's problems will be solved or mitigated by helping the masses think critically is unlikely to take them anywhere near the high levels of public education policy. And even if it did happen the schools wouldn't teach it and they'd have to be dragged kicking and screaming over a decades long period (because the unions and the municipalities have enough power to play that stalling game for that long) because corralling teenagers is harder when they can call you on your bullshit forcing you to address tough topics that have no good answer other than "I'm in charge, deal with it".
- tester756 5y ago
  >Sadly this is so inconvenient for most of the adults. I've heard about it before, but I struggle hard to understand what does it mean like parents will go to school to flame teacher cuz their kid disagrees with them on $hot_topic?
  - markus_zhang 5y ago
    It actually happens a lot (either teacher flames parents for injecting too much "independence thoughts" or the other way around). It is also very inconvenient for politicians/big corps/media.
  - handrous 5y ago
bko 5y ago
I don't understand why they wouldn't use historical examples or stuff about aliens or big foot. History is a great filter and we can now somewhat reasonably understand smear campaigns and propaganda from decades ago. It's not as clear what's being manipulated at the current moment. This just seems more like a way to influence children's political leanings.
- temp8964 5y ago
  Considering the 1619 project is being pushed into public schools, I am pretty sure history can be manipulated too.
  - drunkpotato 5y ago
    History has always been manipulated. It’s written by the victor, after all (for the most part). It is very telling what your complaint is; you’re just mad that your favored whitewashing of history is being challenged.
    - kyleee 5y ago
      It's telling that the user is upset that lies are being promoted by our media, to the extent that people are attempting to insert them into children's school curriculum? It's just an awful line of reasoning to assert that because people have lied in the past, that we should cherish lies and continue to adopt new ones moving forward
      - drunkpotato 5y ago
        Give it a rest. The fact you’re attributing words and sentiments I didn’t write and arguing with a straw man tells me there will be no productive discussion between us.
        temp8964 5y ago
        This is what you said to me: "you’re just mad that your favored whitewashing of history is being challenged". Do you even have remote understanding of what "productive discussion" means?
psychometry 5y ago
Sounds like your news literacy deficiency is being unable to judge the relative importance of news stories, given your ridiculous examples.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  In what way are they ridiculous?
  - psychometry 5y ago
    Why should anyone care so much about Hunter Biden? It's not like Joe Biden filled his staff with his own children like Trump did. Hunter is just another shady businessman, not an elected official. At the beginning, the lab leak "theory" was really just a baseless conspiracy theory since there was zero evidence of it. No wonder it was mostly racist right-wing media personalities pushing it.
ameminator 5y ago
This week, a story broke how Hunter Biden had yet another laptop stolen from him, this time with videos of him doing "crazy sex acts". [0] Yet again, as in 2020, I was unable to share the link below in a private Facebook Messenger group. What else will be censored next, at the behest of the government? I severely mistrust when the government tells you what and who to believe, and that includes our schools. Teach critical thinking, logic and fallacies, and leave it there - the students can make up their own minds. [0] https://nypost.com/2021/08/11/video-reportedly-shows-nude-hunter-biden-saying-another-laptop-with-crazy-sex-acts-was-stolen-from-him/ https://nypost.com/2021/08/11/video-reportedly-shows-nude-hu...
- viggity 5y ago
  I'm sure you know this, but you're only being downvoted because they think you're making shit up. I, unfortunately know that you are not making this shit up.
  - s5300 5y ago
    You know that the government has Facebook's internal codebase backdoored and are able to push out new commits, and that they are explicitly doing so to censor the messenger system? Wow, you could probably get a Pulitzer
    - ameminator 5y ago
      They don't need access to the codebase to influence Facebook to censor information. You could just ask the social media companies to "block misinformation". There are sources in this thread showing the government admitting to doing that.
    - viggity 5y ago
      fwiw, I thought I was replying to the comment one level up from the one that I did.
- s5300 5y ago
  >I was unable to share the link below in a private Facebook Messenger group. What else will be censored next, at the behest of the government? >Facebook Messenger group >the government Does. Not. Compute. Error However, I do applaud your silliness as "Facebook government" almost sounds slightly correct for some swath of people.
zapataband1 5y ago
Please join the school board if you are so concerned. Schools have been teaching critical thinking when it comes to research topics for probably decades/hundreds of years. Remember primary sources? Remember conflicting sources and having to dig into why they were conflicting? Public school ain't perfect but I'd rather have kids know that there -is- bias, than do what you are suggesting which is....? nothign.
mrfusion 5y ago
I mean one way to teach this class would be to simply cover current events in an over the top, biased way and then discuss the tricks used and concerns. (Maybe students get credit for credibly challenging anything mentioned in the class)
- mariodiana 5y ago
  I taught high school for a hot second. I think the approach you suggest would be terrifically engaging for students. Teach them the tricks and make a game of trying to fool one another by setting up two competing teams of "news media," print and talking heads. Essentially, you're teaching them informal fallacies.
  - mc32 5y ago
    I agree this would be a great tool. But I hesitate to think how they will overrun reddit and other places with their newfound tricks to dupe the olds.
tzs 5y ago
If someone claims X is true because of Y it can be misinformation even if X is in fact true and it can not be misinformation even if X is in fact false. For example, suppose I claim that using brand X soap can give you cancer because they use fat harvested from animals that grazed at a toxic waste dump and that fat contains the toxic chemicals that the animals ingested. Suppose it turns out that brand X soap can in fact give you cancer, but it is because some chemical used to make the soap's wrapping paper is carcinogenic and leaches into the soap. The soap itself is vegan soap with no animal products used in its manufacture. Same for the paper. My claim is then misinformation even though my claim that the soap can give you cancer is true, because my reasons for the claim were wrong and I had no even remotely plausible evidence to believe those reasons.
kingkawn 5y ago
The importance of coming to a common consensus on key issues and ideas as a society means that we gotta try, and public institutions is where it should happen foremost. Writing them all off with broad generalizations and cherry-picked moments from the last few years to justify it is just a long way of saying that everyone should give up without trying. No. We gotta try.
jeffbee 5y ago
Well let's examine all the reasons you might suspect the silly Biden laptop story to have been planted by the GRU. 1: Rudy Giuliani is involved 2: Rudy Giuliani specifically traveled to Ukraine in 2019 to dig up dirt on Biden, a mission that he publicly announced. 3: Rudy Giuliani is the GRU's "useful idiot" according to a report prepared for the White House by US intelligence services.
- Fenrisulfr 5y ago
  Wait what? Number 3 doesn't ring a bell. Which report specifically? Was that the exact phrase?
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Giuliani met[1] with Andriy Derkach[2] on his 2019 Ukraine trip. Derkach is the target of a long-running US counter-intelligence operation. In September 2020 the Treasury Department sanctioned[3] Derkach for his work against American interests on behalf of Russian intelligence services. Prior to the sanction, US national security adviser Robert O’Brien personally advised President Trump that Giuliani's information should be considered tainted by Russia[4]. 1: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-lawmaker-says-he-met-trump-lawyer-giuliani-on-corruption/30309282.html https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-lawmaker-says-he-met-trump... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrii_Derkach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrii_Derkach 3: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1118 https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1118 4: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-biden-ukraine-russian-disinformation/2020/10/15/43158900-0ef5-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-bi...
mhh__ 5y ago
Why is it instilling bias specifically? Is this because it's your team that comes out badly in this example?
rayiner 5y ago
If they had any trustworthiness they would also include the media that led to 2/3 of Democrats falsely believing that Russia had tampered with the votes: https://mobile.twitter.com/peterjhasson/status/1064259048902668289/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/peterjhasson/status/1064259048902.... They could also look into all the Russia Collusion stories that turned out to be hot air. People’s overreliance on the Steele Dossier would actually be a good example. Like there’s actually plenty of stuff on both sides to put together a pretty well balanced unit and I think it would be valuable. But you can’t expect partisans with ideological blinders to teach kids how to be objective.
- zapataband1 5y ago
  Omg why would democrats believe this it's not like the CIA released a report saying that Russia tampered in the election.
- Shared404 5y ago
  ... Did you just use a Twitter link that does nothing but make claims on numbers as a source? More specifically, it provides the claim that there was no tampering without any evidence. Meanwhile [0] shows that they have the capability, and the motivations. This is the exact reason we need a class like this. [0] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... Edit: And even looking at the numbers provided this is a mischaracterization. Slightly over 30% of Dem's believe it happened, and another slightly over 30% think it probably did. These two things are not equivalent.
  - jwond 5y ago
    The numbers come from a YouGov poll [0] as the image in the tweet shows. Also I think it’s funny you link that senate report, because section VI of the report is titled “NO EVIDENCE OF CHANGED VOTES OR MANIPULATED VOTE TALLIES” [0] https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/03/09/russias-impact-election-seen-through-partisan-eyes https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...
Frost1x 5y ago
I think it should be more generalized than "news" related but other than that, I applaud such lessons in public education. Coursework should focus on aspects of information gathering/research; understanding sources, credibility, incentive/motive structures of those sources; comparison techniques between information sources for cross comparison; and then with all the information they gather, skills to apply critical thinking and assessment of the information. You also need to understand human biases that can creep in even when you're aware of the biases that often effect critical assessment. In the information age, we need a population that's more educated about information, disinformation, misinformation, common propoganda/manipulation techniques, and so on. We also need a population who under certain conditions can do primary information gathering. Unless you're in the business of manipulating people or those who manipulate people align with your interests (they usually don't), then it's to your benefit to have informed peers to help fight off nonsense.
s5300 5y ago
>Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? What exactly do you mean by this? Do you mean explaining how it was a giant ratfucking [1] shit-slinging fuckfest perpetrated by political animals? I don't think they ever really make their viewers aware of the fact that they're non-stop hounding a dude, who happens to be the child of a politician, that had to witness his mother and sister be literally crushed to death at a young age [2], while he too was being crushed to death. Gee, I can't imagine why somebody who had to live through that as a child might go on to live a slightly fucked up life. I hope, that when discussing something such as "Hunter Bidens Laptop", they discuss the fact of how no coverage was given to conflicts of interest around a point like this regarding the other political party, such as the Trump Orgs fairly massive outstanding debts to China, the near infinite list of fucked up things Trump's children have gotten up to, disgusting facts such as when Trump offered to pay for a family members (child) cancer treatment, then took the money back because the parents did something to make him slightly mad, the fact he's had to pay prostitutes hundreds of thousands of dollars after being sued, going back to the fact he'd parroted donating the entirety of his salary to something charitable, and then... imagine this... actually didn't, lol. But yes, of all the things and conflicts of interest that should be covered and reported on, surely "Hunter Bidens Laptop" is one of them. Man. Remember when people said "maybe it's not a good idea or very nice thing to do in having secret service members drive around a contagious Trump for a small self-serving driveby of a rally of supporters" that was reported by most reasonable news stations? Turned out they were right and one of said service members got so sick with COVID he had to have a leg amputated, and even with whatever insurance being a secret fucking service member entails, he's seriously struggling to afford care. I do not see any news stations bringing this back up though. Why isn't it reported on? This is something that should be discussed in any reasonable class they're attempting to create. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking [2] https://www.biography.com/news/joe-biden-first-wife-daughter-car-accident-story https://www.biography.com/news/joe-biden-first-wife-daughter...
triceratops 5y ago
> Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda What was it, actually? I've lost track. > will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? If 50 or 100 years from now, we find out that aliens did in fact visit Roswell, NM, would we posthumously rehabilitate the UFO nuts and conspiracy theorists of today? Even if all their details were wrong? It's possible to write the right answer on an exam through pure guesswork; that's why teachers say "show your work". It's possible to be a kook and say something that later turns out to be true. It's possible to call lab leak "misinformation" in 2020 but give it a bit more credence after new facts come to light. Especially when "lab leak" was being used as cover or deflection for incompetence and mismanagement of the pandemic response.
consumer451 5y ago
The problem with both of your examples is that they came from a source which had cried wolf (lied) a nearly unfathomable number of times. As an indie I hate to say it, but when there is so much noise to signal coming from one source, it's very likely for a rational person to default to ignoring info from that source. It's actually a decent strategy when there is more data than processing power. I have no problem with teaching that behavior at all. It would encourage sources to have a better SNR. I should add that I am in no way validating either of your claims. I have not seen any info that warrants a "smoking gun" analysis of something evil happening in either case. So far we have chatter and some data points. Would love to be proven wrong on this as that would be a more interesting result.
mbesto 5y ago
> Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. Remember how this story was botched by an entertainment show (not my definition, theres) disguised as news (Fox News)?[0] I think this is the point. It's hard to take a "journalist" seriously when there's so many obvious points of amateurism. Kids should be taught to keep those stewards of information accountable and that shock jock news entertainment (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc.) should warrant extra criticism (if not downright ignored completely). [0] - https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-says-he-had-authentic-damning-new-hunter-biden-documents-it-got-lost-mail-1543084 https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-says-he-had-authenti...
godshatter 5y ago
> Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this, but their "punchline" conclusion was that "the video came from Russia". Sometimes if something isn't reported in certain countries because of bias it can be reported from other countries, even if the only reason they do so is to make that country look bad. It doesn't mean that the video was fake, or that it didn't show evidence of ballot stuffing. I am not saying it was true, I haven't seen that particular video and I'm not one that pushes that particular idea and at this point I don't really care anymore. I'm just unimpressed if that's the reason they discounted it. They also talk about fossil fuel companies funding studies about climate change. While this can certainly be nefarious, it's also possible that they are the only ones motivated to study a particular aspect of climate change because no other groups will touch it because of politics. "Look at the source" is only one piece of the puzzle. I think it's often sought after because it's a good way to dismiss something out of hand. It would have been better, in my opinion, if they looked through the video and had the kids see if they can come up with other possible reasons for the actions they are seeing in the video other than "ballot stuffing", and then come up with ways they could try to validate those hypotheses and assign a "truthiness" rating to it. It doesn't matter who publishes a video if it's actually showing what it says its showing.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

Yep, the news has become just propaganda... no responsibility, no nothing. But people like to consume stuff they believe in...

chrononaut 5y ago
> "has become" Was there a time when it wasn't? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias#History
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  The media has had a "golden age", where the largest vehicles did research and presented well fundamented ideas. It lasted for at least a few decades, as it was visibly improving at the 40's and was still very good at the 80's. Things were never perfect, of course. And we have never had as many facts available to reach our own conclusions (so, it's arguable if people are less or more informed today), but looking only at the media, things weren't always that bad.

cool_dude85 5y ago

From NPR's reporting, it seemed like the class was more about looking for additional sources or examining sources. I'm sure the students could find tons of examples of NPR's nonsense using these methods. Especially relevant is checking photos or videos accompanying articles, the main example given in the report, cause all the big players get caught on this one constantly.

Alex3917 5y ago

> this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Media literacy classes have already been shown to turn some percentage of kids into nazis no matter how you teach them, so any particular bias that might be getting instilled probably doesn’t matter too much. If you tell kids to “Go on YouTube and do your own research about the Jews,” then whatever the teacher thinks stops being relevant after about 30 seconds. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I7FVyQCjNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I7FVyQCjNg

Ragnarork 5y ago
> Media literacy classes have already been shown to turn some percentage of kids into nazis Quite a claim. Where has this been shown?
wolverine876 5y ago
> If you tell kids to “Go on YouTube and do your own research ..." That's not what is being taught, according to the article.
- Alex3917 5y ago
  Of course it is. The entire premise of "media literacy" is that what the mainstream media is telling you might not be true, so you should do your own research. Which of course is accurate, but at the same time a lot of people would be better off just blindly trusting the media.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    The article says otherwise. Could you provide have evidence of your claims? > The entire premise of "media literacy" is that what the mainstream media is telling you might not be true For example, the class studied a video that spread on Facebook, not in the mainstream media, for misinformation.
    - Alex3917 5y ago

weimerica 5y ago

Don’t forget that COVID isn’t a threat and to head on down to all the nice restaurants in Chinatown!

altcognito 5y ago
It will be over in April! A lot of people were just wishing it away
- vmception 5y ago
  I've run into a variety of people that made savings, travel and career choices based on that idea, and it wasn't good for them. Of course they were from the midwest and so likely all of their influences would have been reinforcing the words of the President, but I also don't understand how that would be convincing, given how viruses work. Given how this virus works and spreads.
  - caseysoftware 5y ago
    We were also told "two weeks to stop the spread!" by the CDC and most major news sources. "two weeks" from mid-March would be April "stop the spread" could reasonably interpreted as "we won, all is well" Therefore, it's easy to see why people - including Trump - would be convinced this would all be done in April 2020.
    - vxNsr 5y ago
      Not to mention China seemed to have mostly eradicated it by mid-March by simply shutting down for a few weeks. They still seem to have very few cases, many ppl don’t believe their reporting anymore, but at the time it really did look like a quick shutdown would end it.
    - Izkata 5y ago
      It was "slow the spread" or "flatten the curve", not "stop the spread". The goal was to prevent the hospitals from being overrun while we built extra capacity, after which that extra capacity would allow us to go back to normal. Instead, the extra capacity barely got used and was dismantled a month or two later.

throwawayswede 5y ago

Absolutely. This is somewhat similar to terms like "scientific creationism". It has nothing to do with science. From what I read in the article, this "news literacy" is more like pseudo-literacy, and similar to "scientific creationism", it lacks empirical support and cannot be meaningfully tested.

kiwih 5y ago

I did a module on news literacy at my public high school (not in USA). It typically involved taking some notable story and examining material from every publisher that had written on it. We examined both recent affairs (previous 2-3 years) and historical (women's right to vote, native people's/colonial affairs) and how they were covered in the media at the time. It was a fascinating thing to be taught about, and had a big focus on critical thinking - not just "what is written" but "why is it written this way", "what does the publisher want you to take from this". When the lab leak theory emerged/was initially dismissed, I was actually reminded of my lessons from high school.

flir 5y ago
Part of A Level English Language for me. How to read critically, really. It's the old "freedom fighter vs terrorist" exercise. Of course, this was pre-Internet and the focus was on written English... it's not like we were taught (say) how video editing can control perceptions.
3pt14159 5y ago
Yeah we had this at my private religious high school in Canada as part of civics class. It didn't really have a right or left bend, it focussed on critical thought, sourcing (anonymous sources vs named, credentialed source), fact verifiability, and reputation. Especially with what the internet has done to news this really should be taught in schools everywhere.

haswell 5y ago

It seems like we read different articles. My takeaway is that they’re trying to teach students how to identify bad sources/reporting or outright fake news, not litigate specific news reports. Using 2016 as an example doesn’t invalidate that goal or imply bias.

chitowneats 5y ago
Hunter Biden's laptop falls under this category. Corporate media and social media companies claim "fake news" and move to censor it a month before the election. An honest look at the actual reporting, as well as what followed, shows that this was not in fact the case.
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  ==shows that this was not in fact the case.== What was not in fact the case? Can you share your evidence?
- avs733 5y ago
  As someone who actually engaged with that story, I found the reporting and posited facts to be incoherent and full of holes. It only made sense if one presumed the outcome. Literacy includes evaluating why something was covered by certain folks and not by others as well as the internal coherence and the inter-relationship.
  - janeroe 5y ago
    > As someone who actually engaged with that story, I found the reporting and posited facts to be incoherent and full of holes. Was the story of Russians electing Trump coherent and without holes?
    - Shared404 5y ago
      https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... It has real evidence. I can hunt down more if you like.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago

I read the article and I disagree that the 2016 election is a specific example of what students in class actually learn about (which is what I interpreted when you said “used on the kids”). The 2016 example is actually part of a study to claim there is evidence that students have poor ability to discern from good quality and bad quality news sources, such as a video of dubious origin on Facebook. The actual examples used in class was influencers talking about nutrition and a teacher talking about jan 6 being controversial in the class. And I think your concern that news literacy may be defined too simplistically in the classroom is valid but your reading of the article seems to have poor comprehension.

Consultant32452 5y ago
An important part of indoctrination is training children that only regime approved news sources are reliable.
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  Didn't you study the difference in quality versus non-quality sources as a child? I remember lots of term papers where my references were questioned and only references of certain quality were allowed.
  - Consultant32452 5y ago
    Yes, that's exactly the training I was referring to.
    - long_time_gone 5y ago
      Are you suggesting that all sources are exactly equal? If not, then people need a framework to determine source quality, otherwise we aren't really preparing them for the world. What is your proposal?
      - Consultant32452 5y ago

temp8964 5y ago

Will they discuss Roland Fryer’s finding against the misinformation regarding to police shootings? https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evi... Who is using selective reporting to create a false narrative for what purpose?

mc32 5y ago
There has to be some coordination, if suddenly all the protests and antifa demonstrations stopped seemingly overnight in news reporting. I would be surprised if interactions with police quite suddenly turned less confrontational. People still do things to attract police intervention and police still respond and have to leverage lethal force, but we don't hear that much about it in the media. so, what gives?
- majormajor 5y ago
  Police lethal force is still covered whenever it happens in my local paper. The protest coverage faded out over time; anecdotally, so have the protests I've seen while driving around town.

nkozyra 5y ago

> Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? I suppose you have to pick an example to work from and frankly, the 2016 election was the most noteworthy and groundbreaking disinformation campaign. A teacher could certainly talk about the latter, but neither Hunter Biden's laptop and Lab Leak Theory have the bulk of documentation to point to.

HarryHirsch 5y ago

This is as comforting as hearing that schools are teaching religion. You could have spared yourself that dig, it's beside the point and stupid. The comparison with religion is actually good. In some countries religion is taught in school because religion is part of human culture, which is firmly within the bailiwick of school. So teachers teaching religion must be accredited by both the government (for competency) and by their religious authority (for adherence to dogma). That's good, because you know who they answer to, and since religious authorities are usually mainstream you won't get revolutionaries or apocalyptic types either. But reading the news in school, it's like the Soviets teaching how to trust Prawda.

wolverine876 5y ago
> So teachers teaching religion must be accredited by both the government (for competency) and by their religious authority (for adherence to dogma). That's good, because you know who they answer to, and since religious authorities are usually mainstream you won't get revolutionaries or apocalyptic types either. Religious authorities have a long history of oppressing free thought, including questioning the authority or tenants of the religion, and rationality, such as science. I would not say they are usually 'mainstream', unless we circularly define mainstream as whatever the religion says.
Vaslo 5y ago
I’m sure all the sources will be “neutral” given the far left leaning of the teachers union.
- simiones 5y ago
  Neutrality is an irrelevant goal. It's quite possible for the conclusions of critical thinking to fall on the left or the right - even the extremes of either. Falling for the center narrative is no more uncritical than falling for any other.
trasz 5y ago
First, the parts of religion that are a part of human culture are usually not religious at all. That’s what the “cultural Christian”, or “Christian atheist” means. What happens in schools in countries like Poland is a religious indoctrination, and usually focuses on promoting social pathologies, such as denying reproductive rights and spreading hate speech against minorities. Second, again using Poland as an example, this is largely outside of government control: the state cedes all authority about this part of schooling to Church, and Church is free to choose whatever propagandists it likes.

pndy 5y ago

If the English lessons in the US are covering text analysis, reading comprehension then nothing stops teachers or whoever is responsible for managing the curricula to include issues like fake news, propaganda in today's media - especially in the virtual forms. Of course this might look easy on the paper and be hard to achieve in reality.

refenestrator 5y ago

That lab leak theory is the most amazing example of widespread bias on all sides I've ever seen. We went from it being banned on Facebook to it having mainstream acceptance in like a week despite ZERO change in the underlying evidence. The evidence was always just "well there's a lab there". The only thing that changed was Trump isn't president anymore. It's the perfect rorschach issue for underlying bias, free of any clearcut facts that might be evaluated neutrally.

colinmhayes 5y ago
There was that scientist who said it wasn't a lab leak but it turns out he may have been paid by China.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  May have! And how would he know anyways? He can't prove a negative. If someone had collected US research grant money and went the other way would we call them 'paid by America'? Like I said. The perfect rorschach issue.
whimsicalism 5y ago
I've always been of the opinion that a lab leak is certainly possible, but still very unlikely. It's been wild seeing this rollercoaster that is entirely based on media coverage without one shred of evidence either way. Very disenchanted with the media over the last 5 years, and it did not used to be this bad.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ErikVandeWater 5y ago
The coverup with a man who authorized the funding for the lab being the only American on the WHO scientific panel investigating the lab was the smoking gun for me. It really doesn't matter if it came from the lab or from the environment. The fact that they covered it up shows the lab was breaking protocols and they believed it could have been the lab that released the virus. The lab needs to be shut down and similar labs shut as well to institute a major overhaul of the system.

markus_zhang 5y ago

They should teach independent thoughts. Sadly this is so inconvenient for most of the adults.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
It's nice to dream about but it will never happen. The incentives are all wrong for public education to teach critical thought. The politically appointed or "hired by reference" committees and/or teams of bureaucrat that are responsible for setting curriculum at the state level would never do that because then they'd have to answer to politicians on both sides of the isle for making their job harder. People operating at these levels of bureaucracy don't need to be told what the boss wants, they read the room and know in which direction they should be erring. Your career doesn't take you through those sorts of positions that far if you're not the kind of person who does that. Furthermore, the career arc of someone who believes that society's problems will be solved or mitigated by helping the masses think critically is unlikely to take them anywhere near the high levels of public education policy. And even if it did happen the schools wouldn't teach it and they'd have to be dragged kicking and screaming over a decades long period (because the unions and the municipalities have enough power to play that stalling game for that long) because corralling teenagers is harder when they can call you on your bullshit forcing you to address tough topics that have no good answer other than "I'm in charge, deal with it".
tester756 5y ago
>Sadly this is so inconvenient for most of the adults. I've heard about it before, but I struggle hard to understand what does it mean like parents will go to school to flame teacher cuz their kid disagrees with them on $hot_topic?
- markus_zhang 5y ago
  It actually happens a lot (either teacher flames parents for injecting too much "independence thoughts" or the other way around). It is also very inconvenient for politicians/big corps/media.
- handrous 5y ago

bko 5y ago

I don't understand why they wouldn't use historical examples or stuff about aliens or big foot. History is a great filter and we can now somewhat reasonably understand smear campaigns and propaganda from decades ago. It's not as clear what's being manipulated at the current moment. This just seems more like a way to influence children's political leanings.

temp8964 5y ago
Considering the 1619 project is being pushed into public schools, I am pretty sure history can be manipulated too.
- drunkpotato 5y ago
  History has always been manipulated. It’s written by the victor, after all (for the most part). It is very telling what your complaint is; you’re just mad that your favored whitewashing of history is being challenged.
  - kyleee 5y ago
    It's telling that the user is upset that lies are being promoted by our media, to the extent that people are attempting to insert them into children's school curriculum? It's just an awful line of reasoning to assert that because people have lied in the past, that we should cherish lies and continue to adopt new ones moving forward
    - drunkpotato 5y ago
      Give it a rest. The fact you’re attributing words and sentiments I didn’t write and arguing with a straw man tells me there will be no productive discussion between us.
      - temp8964 5y ago
        This is what you said to me: "you’re just mad that your favored whitewashing of history is being challenged". Do you even have remote understanding of what "productive discussion" means?

psychometry 5y ago

Sounds like your news literacy deficiency is being unable to judge the relative importance of news stories, given your ridiculous examples.

whimsicalism 5y ago
In what way are they ridiculous?
- psychometry 5y ago
  Why should anyone care so much about Hunter Biden? It's not like Joe Biden filled his staff with his own children like Trump did. Hunter is just another shady businessman, not an elected official. At the beginning, the lab leak "theory" was really just a baseless conspiracy theory since there was zero evidence of it. No wonder it was mostly racist right-wing media personalities pushing it.

ameminator 5y ago

This week, a story broke how Hunter Biden had yet another laptop stolen from him, this time with videos of him doing "crazy sex acts". [0] Yet again, as in 2020, I was unable to share the link below in a private Facebook Messenger group. What else will be censored next, at the behest of the government? I severely mistrust when the government tells you what and who to believe, and that includes our schools. Teach critical thinking, logic and fallacies, and leave it there - the students can make up their own minds. [0] https://nypost.com/2021/08/11/video-reportedly-shows-nude-hunter-biden-saying-another-laptop-with-crazy-sex-acts-was-stolen-from-him/ https://nypost.com/2021/08/11/video-reportedly-shows-nude-hu...

viggity 5y ago
I'm sure you know this, but you're only being downvoted because they think you're making shit up. I, unfortunately know that you are not making this shit up.
- s5300 5y ago
  You know that the government has Facebook's internal codebase backdoored and are able to push out new commits, and that they are explicitly doing so to censor the messenger system? Wow, you could probably get a Pulitzer
  - ameminator 5y ago
    They don't need access to the codebase to influence Facebook to censor information. You could just ask the social media companies to "block misinformation". There are sources in this thread showing the government admitting to doing that.
  - viggity 5y ago
    fwiw, I thought I was replying to the comment one level up from the one that I did.
s5300 5y ago
>I was unable to share the link below in a private Facebook Messenger group. What else will be censored next, at the behest of the government? >Facebook Messenger group >the government Does. Not. Compute. Error However, I do applaud your silliness as "Facebook government" almost sounds slightly correct for some swath of people.

zapataband1 5y ago

Please join the school board if you are so concerned. Schools have been teaching critical thinking when it comes to research topics for probably decades/hundreds of years. Remember primary sources? Remember conflicting sources and having to dig into why they were conflicting? Public school ain't perfect but I'd rather have kids know that there -is- bias, than do what you are suggesting which is....? nothign.

mrfusion 5y ago

I mean one way to teach this class would be to simply cover current events in an over the top, biased way and then discuss the tricks used and concerns. (Maybe students get credit for credibly challenging anything mentioned in the class)

mariodiana 5y ago
I taught high school for a hot second. I think the approach you suggest would be terrifically engaging for students. Teach them the tricks and make a game of trying to fool one another by setting up two competing teams of "news media," print and talking heads. Essentially, you're teaching them informal fallacies.
- mc32 5y ago
  I agree this would be a great tool. But I hesitate to think how they will overrun reddit and other places with their newfound tricks to dupe the olds.

tzs 5y ago

If someone claims X is true because of Y it can be misinformation even if X is in fact true and it can not be misinformation even if X is in fact false. For example, suppose I claim that using brand X soap can give you cancer because they use fat harvested from animals that grazed at a toxic waste dump and that fat contains the toxic chemicals that the animals ingested. Suppose it turns out that brand X soap can in fact give you cancer, but it is because some chemical used to make the soap's wrapping paper is carcinogenic and leaches into the soap. The soap itself is vegan soap with no animal products used in its manufacture. Same for the paper. My claim is then misinformation even though my claim that the soap can give you cancer is true, because my reasons for the claim were wrong and I had no even remotely plausible evidence to believe those reasons.

kingkawn 5y ago

The importance of coming to a common consensus on key issues and ideas as a society means that we gotta try, and public institutions is where it should happen foremost. Writing them all off with broad generalizations and cherry-picked moments from the last few years to justify it is just a long way of saying that everyone should give up without trying. No. We gotta try.

jeffbee 5y ago

Well let's examine all the reasons you might suspect the silly Biden laptop story to have been planted by the GRU. 1: Rudy Giuliani is involved 2: Rudy Giuliani specifically traveled to Ukraine in 2019 to dig up dirt on Biden, a mission that he publicly announced. 3: Rudy Giuliani is the GRU's "useful idiot" according to a report prepared for the White House by US intelligence services.

Fenrisulfr 5y ago
Wait what? Number 3 doesn't ring a bell. Which report specifically? Was that the exact phrase?
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Giuliani met[1] with Andriy Derkach[2] on his 2019 Ukraine trip. Derkach is the target of a long-running US counter-intelligence operation. In September 2020 the Treasury Department sanctioned[3] Derkach for his work against American interests on behalf of Russian intelligence services. Prior to the sanction, US national security adviser Robert O’Brien personally advised President Trump that Giuliani's information should be considered tainted by Russia[4]. 1: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-lawmaker-says-he-met-trump-lawyer-giuliani-on-corruption/30309282.html https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-lawmaker-says-he-met-trump... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrii_Derkach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrii_Derkach 3: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1118 https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1118 4: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-biden-ukraine-russian-disinformation/2020/10/15/43158900-0ef5-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-bi...

mhh__ 5y ago

Why is it instilling bias specifically? Is this because it's your team that comes out badly in this example?

rayiner 5y ago

If they had any trustworthiness they would also include the media that led to 2/3 of Democrats falsely believing that Russia had tampered with the votes: https://mobile.twitter.com/peterjhasson/status/1064259048902668289/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/peterjhasson/status/1064259048902.... They could also look into all the Russia Collusion stories that turned out to be hot air. People’s overreliance on the Steele Dossier would actually be a good example. Like there’s actually plenty of stuff on both sides to put together a pretty well balanced unit and I think it would be valuable. But you can’t expect partisans with ideological blinders to teach kids how to be objective.

zapataband1 5y ago
Omg why would democrats believe this it's not like the CIA released a report saying that Russia tampered in the election.
Shared404 5y ago
... Did you just use a Twitter link that does nothing but make claims on numbers as a source? More specifically, it provides the claim that there was no tampering without any evidence. Meanwhile [0] shows that they have the capability, and the motivations. This is the exact reason we need a class like this. [0] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... Edit: And even looking at the numbers provided this is a mischaracterization. Slightly over 30% of Dem's believe it happened, and another slightly over 30% think it probably did. These two things are not equivalent.
- jwond 5y ago
  The numbers come from a YouGov poll [0] as the image in the tweet shows. Also I think it’s funny you link that senate report, because section VI of the report is titled “NO EVIDENCE OF CHANGED VOTES OR MANIPULATED VOTE TALLIES” [0] https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/03/09/russias-impact-election-seen-through-partisan-eyes https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...

Frost1x 5y ago

I think it should be more generalized than "news" related but other than that, I applaud such lessons in public education. Coursework should focus on aspects of information gathering/research; understanding sources, credibility, incentive/motive structures of those sources; comparison techniques between information sources for cross comparison; and then with all the information they gather, skills to apply critical thinking and assessment of the information. You also need to understand human biases that can creep in even when you're aware of the biases that often effect critical assessment. In the information age, we need a population that's more educated about information, disinformation, misinformation, common propoganda/manipulation techniques, and so on. We also need a population who under certain conditions can do primary information gathering. Unless you're in the business of manipulating people or those who manipulate people align with your interests (they usually don't), then it's to your benefit to have informed peers to help fight off nonsense.

s5300 5y ago

>Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? What exactly do you mean by this? Do you mean explaining how it was a giant ratfucking [1] shit-slinging fuckfest perpetrated by political animals? I don't think they ever really make their viewers aware of the fact that they're non-stop hounding a dude, who happens to be the child of a politician, that had to witness his mother and sister be literally crushed to death at a young age [2], while he too was being crushed to death. Gee, I can't imagine why somebody who had to live through that as a child might go on to live a slightly fucked up life. I hope, that when discussing something such as "Hunter Bidens Laptop", they discuss the fact of how no coverage was given to conflicts of interest around a point like this regarding the other political party, such as the Trump Orgs fairly massive outstanding debts to China, the near infinite list of fucked up things Trump's children have gotten up to, disgusting facts such as when Trump offered to pay for a family members (child) cancer treatment, then took the money back because the parents did something to make him slightly mad, the fact he's had to pay prostitutes hundreds of thousands of dollars after being sued, going back to the fact he'd parroted donating the entirety of his salary to something charitable, and then... imagine this... actually didn't, lol. But yes, of all the things and conflicts of interest that should be covered and reported on, surely "Hunter Bidens Laptop" is one of them. Man. Remember when people said "maybe it's not a good idea or very nice thing to do in having secret service members drive around a contagious Trump for a small self-serving driveby of a rally of supporters" that was reported by most reasonable news stations? Turned out they were right and one of said service members got so sick with COVID he had to have a leg amputated, and even with whatever insurance being a secret fucking service member entails, he's seriously struggling to afford care. I do not see any news stations bringing this back up though. Why isn't it reported on? This is something that should be discussed in any reasonable class they're attempting to create. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking [2] https://www.biography.com/news/joe-biden-first-wife-daughter-car-accident-story https://www.biography.com/news/joe-biden-first-wife-daughter...

triceratops 5y ago

> Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda What was it, actually? I've lost track. > will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? If 50 or 100 years from now, we find out that aliens did in fact visit Roswell, NM, would we posthumously rehabilitate the UFO nuts and conspiracy theorists of today? Even if all their details were wrong? It's possible to write the right answer on an exam through pure guesswork; that's why teachers say "show your work". It's possible to be a kook and say something that later turns out to be true. It's possible to call lab leak "misinformation" in 2020 but give it a bit more credence after new facts come to light. Especially when "lab leak" was being used as cover or deflection for incompetence and mismanagement of the pandemic response.

consumer451 5y ago

The problem with both of your examples is that they came from a source which had cried wolf (lied) a nearly unfathomable number of times. As an indie I hate to say it, but when there is so much noise to signal coming from one source, it's very likely for a rational person to default to ignoring info from that source. It's actually a decent strategy when there is more data than processing power. I have no problem with teaching that behavior at all. It would encourage sources to have a better SNR. I should add that I am in no way validating either of your claims. I have not seen any info that warrants a "smoking gun" analysis of something evil happening in either case. So far we have chatter and some data points. Would love to be proven wrong on this as that would be a more interesting result.

mbesto 5y ago

> Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. Remember how this story was botched by an entertainment show (not my definition, theres) disguised as news (Fox News)?[0] I think this is the point. It's hard to take a "journalist" seriously when there's so many obvious points of amateurism. Kids should be taught to keep those stewards of information accountable and that shock jock news entertainment (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc.) should warrant extra criticism (if not downright ignored completely). [0] - https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-says-he-had-authentic-damning-new-hunter-biden-documents-it-got-lost-mail-1543084 https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-says-he-had-authenti...

godshatter 5y ago

> Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this, but their "punchline" conclusion was that "the video came from Russia". Sometimes if something isn't reported in certain countries because of bias it can be reported from other countries, even if the only reason they do so is to make that country look bad. It doesn't mean that the video was fake, or that it didn't show evidence of ballot stuffing. I am not saying it was true, I haven't seen that particular video and I'm not one that pushes that particular idea and at this point I don't really care anymore. I'm just unimpressed if that's the reason they discounted it. They also talk about fossil fuel companies funding studies about climate change. While this can certainly be nefarious, it's also possible that they are the only ones motivated to study a particular aspect of climate change because no other groups will touch it because of politics. "Look at the source" is only one piece of the puzzle. I think it's often sought after because it's a good way to dismiss something out of hand. It would have been better, in my opinion, if they looked through the video and had the kids see if they can come up with other possible reasons for the actions they are seeing in the video other than "ballot stuffing", and then come up with ways they could try to validate those hypotheses and assign a "truthiness" rating to it. It doesn't matter who publishes a video if it's actually showing what it says its showing.