Media+Literacy

=Media, Internet & Censorship =

How Media Works
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London Guardian open journalism: Three Little Pigs advertisement "This advert for the Guardian's open journalism, screened for the first time on 29 February 2012, imagines how we might cover the story of the Three Little Pigs in print and online. Follow the story from the paper's front page headline, through a social media discussion and finally to an unexpected conclusion." [|Amy Goodman Talks about the Media] [|Understanding How the Media Works]

=[|Annenberg Public Policy Center] = ====University of Pennsylvania School for Communication. Since 1993 the Annenberg Public Policy Center has studied Americans’ political knowledge, discourse, media use and opinions about candidates and issues. ==== ===[|Annenberg Public Policy Center Poll] ===

=FAKE NEWS • CLICK BAIT • FAKE NEWS =

[|How to Spot Fake News]
"Thinking, frankly, is what everyone needs to be doing these days." 

Here are a few basic questions to consider whenever you encounter a piece of media:
 * Who made this?
 * Who is the target audience?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Who paid for this? Or, who gets paid if you click on this?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Who might benefit or be harmed by this message?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">What is left out of this message that might be important?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Is this credible (and what makes you think that)?

=<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">HOW TO RECOGNIZE FAKE NEWS =

media type="youtube" key="g2AdkNH-kWA" height="360" width="640" <span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">(Quoted from article originally appearing on Common Sense Media)
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Look for unusual URLs or site names, including those that end with “.co” — these are often trying to appear like legitimate news sites, but they aren’t.
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Look for signs of low quality, such as words in all caps, headlines with glaring grammatical errors, bold claims with no sources, and sensationalist images (women in bikinis are popular clickbait on fake news sites). These are clues that you should be skeptical of the source.
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Check a site’s “About Us” section. Find out who supports the site or who is associated with it. If this information doesn’t exist — and if the site requires that you register before you can learn anything about its backers — you have to wonder why they aren’t being transparent.
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Check Snopes, Wikipedia, and Google before trusting or sharing news that seems too good (or bad) to be true.
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Consider whether other credible, mainstream news outlets are reporting the same news. If they’re not, it doesn’t mean it’s not true, but it does mean you should dig deeper.
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Check your emotions. Clickbait and fake news strive for extreme reactions. If the news you’re reading makes you really angry or super smug, it could be a sign that you’re being played. Check multiple sources before trusting.

media type="youtube" key="ZQ9wcrfMFJ0" height="360" width="640" <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Politicians Learn to Pivot

**<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Media Bias ** |||| <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;"><span class="wiki_link_ext">[|Media Matters.org] — Political Right claims MM has a Liberal bias <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;"><span class="wiki_link_ext"><span class="wiki_link_ext">[|NewsBusters.org] — This site claims media itself as a Liberal bias  || <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Fact Check.org] [|politiFact.com] ||
 * ==<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">National Media == || ==<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Local Media == ||
 * * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">ABC News
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Aljazeera
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|AM-Joy]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Anderson Cooper—CNN
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">BBC London
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Bloomberg News
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">BuzzFeed
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Chicago Tribune
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Chris Hayes-MSNBC]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">CNN News || * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Drudge Report
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Forbes]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Free Republic
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Fox & Friends
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Fox News]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">George Will
 * Google News
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Guardian London
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Hannity—Fox News
 * The Hill
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Huffington Post] || * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">NPR: Public Radio
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Newsweek
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|New York Times]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">PBS News Hour
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Politico
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Rachel Maddow]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Raw Story
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Red State]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Rolling Stone || * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Anderson Valley Advertiser
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Fort Bragg Advocate
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">KGO SF-Talk Radio
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">KPFA Radio
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">KZYX Radio
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Mendocino County News
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Santa Rosa Democrat
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Ukiah Daily Journal ||
 * < * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|CNN—Jake Tapper]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">CNN Situation Room
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">C-SPAN
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Daily Beast]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Daily Caller
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Daily Kos]
 * Daily Mail
 * Daily Telegraph
 * [|Dana Perino—Fox]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Democracy Now || * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Last Word—MSNBC
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|LA Times]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Laura Ingraham—Fox]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Morning Joe MSNBC
 * Mother Jones
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">MSNBC News
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Nation Magazine
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">National Review
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|NBC] || * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Salon.Com
 * SF Chronicle
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Talking Points Memo]
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Time Magazine
 * USA Today
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Wall Street Journal
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Washington Post
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Washington Times
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Weekly Standard
 * The Young Turks ||< ==<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Social Media ==
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Facebook
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Twitter
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Yahoo!
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">YouTube
 * ||  ||   || [|example: social media in politics] ||
 * xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxjjjjjjjxxxx ||
 * **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Fact Checks & **
 * **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Fact Checks & **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;"><span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**NOTE:** There's another list of media links at the bottom of the page on the Huffington Post (Scroll to the bottom. ) ||
 * **<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">NEW!! Here is a site that reports on the media's coverage of the news. ** ||

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[[image:newsweek-cover-we-are-all-socialists-revised-for-accuracy3.jpg align="right"]]Critique: Left/Right or Neutral?
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Media Bias in US <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Noam Chomsky: Media Bias <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">(**Question:** Is Noam Chomsky a neutral source of information? What is his bias?) <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Determining Bias: Prager University <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">(**Question:** Is Prager University a neutral source of information? What is their bias?) <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">What is biased reporting? (An opinion based on current events.) =<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> =

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The Foundation for Critical Thinking: Detecting Media Bias <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">

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<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Please Click here to read a recent article on the impact of political bias innews coverage. ===== =<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Detecting Media Bias** = <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**from FAIR (Monitoring Fairness in Media & Reporting since 1986)** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Media has tremendous power in setting cultural guidelines and in shaping political discourse. It is essential that news media, along with other institutions, are challenged to be fair and accurate. The first step in challenging biased news coverage is documenting bias. Here are some questions to ask yourself about newspaper, TV and radio news.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Who Are the Sources?**
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Be aware of the political perspective of the sources used in a story. Media over-rely on "official" (government, corporate and establishment think tank) sources. For instance, FAIR found that in 40 months of Nightline programming, the most frequent guests were Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, Elliott Abrams and Jerry Falwell. Progressive and public interest voices were grossly underrepresented. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">To portray issues fairly and accurately, media must broaden their spectrum of sources. Otherwise, they serve merely as megaphones for those in power > <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Political coverage often focuses on how issues affect politicians or corporate executives rather than those directly affected by the issue. For example, many stories on parental notification of abortion emphasized the "tough choice" confronting male politicians while quoting no women under 18—those with the most at stake in the debate. Economics coverage usually looks at how events impact stockholders rather than workers or consumers.
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Count the number of corporate and government sources versus the number of progressive, public interest, female and minority voices.**
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Is there a lack of diversity?** What is the race and gender diversity at the news outlet you watch compared to the communities it serves? How many producers, editors or decision-makers at news outlets are women, people of color or openly gay or lesbian? In order to fairly represent different communities, news outlets should have members of those communities in decision-making positions. How many of the experts these news outlets cite are women and people of color? FAIR's 40-month survey of Nightline found its U.S. guests to be 92 percent white and 89 percent male. A similar survey of PBS's NewsHour found its guestlist was 90 percent white and 87 percent male.
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**The media you consume should reflect the diversity of the public they serve.**
 * **<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">From whose point of view is the news reported? **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Those affected by the issue should have a voice in coverage.**

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Double Standards?

 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Does the media hold some people to one standard while using a different standard for other groups?** Youth of color who commit crimes are referred to as "superpredators," whereas adult criminals who commit white-collar crimes are often portrayed as having been tragically led astray. Think tanks partly funded by unions are often identified as "labor-backed" while think tanks heavily funded by business interests are usually not identified as "corporate-backed."
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Expose the double standard by coming up with a parallel example or citing similar stories that were covered differently.** Do stereotypes skew coverage?Does coverage of the drug crisis focus almost exclusively on African Americans, despite the fact that the vast majority of drug users are white? Does coverage of women on welfare focus overwhelmingly on African-American women, despite the fact that the majority of welfare recipients are not black? Are lesbians portrayed as "man-hating" and gay men portrayed as "sexual predators" (even though a child is 100 times more likely to be molested by a family member than by an unrelated gay adult—Denver Post, 9/28/92)?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Educate journalists about misconceptions involved in stereotypes, and about how stereotypes characterize individuals unfairly.** What are the unchallenged assumptions? Often the most important message of a story is not explicitly stated. For instance, in coverage of women on welfare, the age at which a woman had her first child will often be reported—the implication being that the woman's sexual "promiscuity," rather than institutional economic factors, are responsible for her plight. Coverage of rape trials will often focus on a woman's sexual history as though it calls her credibility into question. After the arrest of William Kennedy Smith, a //New York Times// article (4/17/91) dredged up a host of irrelevant personal details about his accuser, including the facts that she had skipped classes in the 9th grade, had received several speeding tickets, and—when on a date—had talked to other men.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Loaded Language?

 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**When media adopt loaded terminology, they help shape public opinion.** For instance, media often use the right-wing buzzword "racial preference" to refer to affirmative action programs. Polls show that this decision makes a huge difference in how the issue is perceived: A 1992 Harris poll found that 70% said they favored "affirmative action" while only 46% favored "racial preference programs."
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Challenge the assumption directly.** Often bringing assumptions to the surface will demonstrate their absurdity. Most reporters, for example, will not say directly that a woman deserved to be raped because of what she was wearing.
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Does the language give people an inaccurate impression of the issue, program or community?
 * **<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Is there a lack of context? **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Coverage of so-called "reverse discrimination" usually fails to focus on any of the institutional factors which gives power to prejudice—such as larger issues of economic inequality and institutional racism.** Coverage of hate speech against gays and lesbians often fails to mention increases in gay-bashing and how the two might be related. Provide the context. Communicate to the journalist, or write a letter to the editor that includes the relevant information.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Headline/Story Mismatch?

 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Usually headlines are not written by the reporter.** Since many people just skim headlines, misleading headlines have a significant impact. A classic case: In a //New York Times// article on the June 1988 U.S.-Soviet summit in Moscow, Margaret Thatcher was quoted as saying of Reagan, "Poor dear, there's nothing between his ears." The //Times// headline: "Thatcher Salute to the Reagan Years."
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Are stories on important issues featured prominently?** Look at where stories appear. Newspaper articles on the most widely read pages (the front pages and the editorial pages) and lead stories on television and radio will have the greatest influence on public opinion.
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**When you see a story on government or corporate officials engaged in activities that violate the law or the Constitution buried where it won't be seen, that's a problem.** Important issues should get prominent coverage.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Media Awareness Alliance
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The Media Awareness Alliance is a Canadian non-profit that has been pioneering the development of media literacy and digital literacy programs since its incorporation in 1996. Members of its team have backgrounds in education, journalism, mass communications and cultural policy. They promote media literacy and digital literacy by producing education and awareness programs and resources.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">authenticating online information <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Traditionally, when looking for information, we would seek out reputable sources such as an established newspaper or book publisher. We tend to trust material published by public institutions, written by experts, or recommended by information specialists such as librarians or teachers. As well, such traditional resources had "gatekeepers"—editors, fact checkers or peer reviewers—to make sure the material was accurate. The job of these gatekeepers was to weed out incomplete or erroneous information, as well as lies and hoaxes. But the Internet is different. In most cases it has no such gatekeepers: anyone and everyone can appear to be an "expert." So to get the most out of the Internet, **students need to learn two things: //first, how to find good information online; and second, how to evaluate the information they find.//**
 * <span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL IS FROM THE MEDIA AWARENESS ALLIANCE WEBSITE: **

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">When you think you've found what you're looking for, the next step is to evaluate the information. How can you determine if the source is legitimate? There are several questions you can ask. For instance: **What is the purpose of the Web site—Has it been created to provide information, or promote its own products?** The information you find on a pharmaceutical company site, for example, may be quite different from that offered by a government health agency. **<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Ask yourself: **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">What kind of Web site is this? What is its purpose: To inform? To sell? To entertain? To persuade?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Is it a commercial Web site? A personal home page? An educational site? How can you tell?

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Approach the Internet with healthy skepticism. Ask the right questions about the information you encounter online: ===<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The 5 W's (and 1 H) of Cyberspace ===
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Who** is the source?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**What** am I getting?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**When** was it created?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Where** am I?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Why** am I there?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**How** can I distinguish quality information from junk?


 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;"><span class="wiki_link_ext">(John Stewart Interviews are Optional/Not Required Viewing) **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;"><span class="wiki_link_ext">John Stewart/Daily Show Talks Media with Rachel Maddow, MSNBC **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Part I **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Part II **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Part III **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Part IV **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">John Stewart/Daily Show Talks Media with Chris Wallace, Fox News **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Part I **
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Part II **

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">** Identifying Bias in the Media ** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The following ideas drawn from Media Awareness Network& fairpress.org <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Bias through selection and omission****:** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">An editor can express a bias by choosing to use or not to use a specific news item. Within a given story, some details can be ignored, and others included, to give readers or viewers a different opinion about the events reported. If, during a speech, a few people boo, the reaction can be described as “remarks greeted by jeers” or they can be ignored as “a handful of dissidents.” If a reporter ignores facts that tend to disprove the claims of one side or the other, or that support the beliefs of one side or the other, that’s bias. To catch this kind of bias you'll have to be knowledgeable about the particular subject. If you know the various points of view on an issue, then you'll recognize when one side is left out. Bias by omission can occur either within a story, or over the long term as a particular news outlet reports one set of events, but not another. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Bias through placement:** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Newspaper stories are usually written in a pyramid style, that is, the most important facts are supposed to appear early in the story, with each paragraph a little less important than the previous paragraph. Newspapers use that style for two reasons: (a) so that editors, editing a story to fit the available space, can cut from the bottom up, and (b) so that the average reader will get the most important facts. Editors know that, the farther down you go in a news story, the fewer readers you have. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Bias through headline:** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Many people read only the headlines of a news item. Most people scan nearly all the headlines in a newspaper. Headlines are the most-read part of a paper. They can summarize as well as present carefully hidden bias and prejudices. They can convey excitement where little exists. They can express approval or condemnation. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> **Bias through photos, captions and camera angles:** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Some pictures flatter a person, others make the person look unpleasant. A paper can choose photos to influence opinion about, for example, a candidate for election. On television, the choice of which visual images to display is extremely important. The captions newspapers run below photos are also potential sources of bias. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Bias through use of names and titles:** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">News media often use labels and titles to describe people, places, and events. A person can be called an "ex-con" or be referred to as someone who "served time twenty years ago for a minor offense." Whether a person is described as a "terrorist" or a "freedom fighter" is a clear indication of editorial bias. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Bias through statistics and crowd counts:** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">To make a disaster seem more spectacular (and therefore worthy of reading about), numbers can be inflated. "A hundred injured in air crash" can be the same as "only minor injuries in air crash," reflecting the opinion of the person doing the counting. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Bias by source control:** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">This bias can be seen when a reporter uses such phrases as “experts believe,” “observers say,” or “most people think.” Quoting an expert by name does not necessarily add to the credibility of a story, because reporters can choose any “expert" they want. The same goes for the use of politicians or “man on the street” interviews. Experts in news stories are like expert witnesses in trials. If you know whether the defense or the prosecution called a particular expert witness to the stand, you know which way the witness will likely testify. And when a news story only presents one side, it is likely the side the reporter supports. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Bias by spin:** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Party spokespeople who talk with reporters usually want to convince reporters that their position is correct. This has come to be known as “spin.” Spin involves tone, the part of the reporting that extends beyond hard news. It's “subjective comments about objective facts.” When politicians and experts are offering more than one interpretation of an event or policy, notice if the reporter favors one over the other. Many news stories do not reflect a particular spin. Others summarize the spin put on an event by both sides. When a story reflects one to the exclusion of the other, this is “bias by spin.” <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Bias by labeling:** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Attaching a label to one group, but not to the other; or using more extreme labeling for one group than the other. Identifying a one person or group as an "expert" or as independent. The power to label politicians, activists and groups is one of the media's most subtle and potent powers. Labels then to tell you as much about the person applying them as about the subject being labeled. Classifications matter. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Tagging of some politicians and groups with extreme labels while leaving other politicians and groups unlabeled or labeled with more favorable terminology is bias. Terms like “women’s rights group,” or “civil rights advocates,” don’t always reflect the group’s political agenda. Groups tend to choose labels that portray them in the most favorable terms, such as “free-speech activists,” or “prolife activists.” <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Bias by word choice and tone** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Showing the same kind of bias that appears in headlines, the use of positive or negative words or words with a particular connotation can strongly influence the reader or viewer. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**What Isn't Bias** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">You may come across stories that you believe fit one of these eight definitions of bias. But, they still may not qualify as examples which you should criticize. With some narrow exceptions explained later in this section, you want to identify bias that occurs in news stories and which favors the liberal view over the conservative perspective. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">What isn't bias falls into three broad categories: <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Newspaper, radio and television station editorials are supposed to take a point of view. The same goes for columns which appear on the op-ed page and commentaries on television news shows. Don't equate a front page news story with an editorial. They are very different items. You should stick to analyzing news stories. They are supposed to be unbiased presentations of the news. When they are biased, the reporter is not doing his job. Editorial and column writers, in contrast, are supposed to take a point of view. They are under no obligation to be fair or balanced. The only exception: If you are interested in showing that a newspaper's editorials are consistently liberal, or advocate liberal policies more often than conservative ones. Similarly, you can analyze the columnists run by your local paper if you want to prove that contrary to the paper's claim or public perception, they do not balance out.
 * 1) <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Editorials or opinion columns
 * 2) <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Stories or statements that make the conservative side look bad, but are accurate
 * 3) <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Non-policy stories on a specific event that don't have to be balanced

**<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Example of Media Bias? **
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">(read first comment below) <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">A reader accused Huffington Post of writing "sensationalized" headlines in order to attract clicks from readers. (Clicks help determine numbers of readers and, in turn, effect costs for advertisers.)

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[[image:SolarBlast.jpg width="456" height="190" align="right"]]Comment:
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">"Another classic example of HuffPost's increasingly disingenuous and deliberately misleading form of "journalism." Sensationalist teaser headline on the front page to get you to click on the article: "HUGE Solar Blast Races Toward Red Planet" (emphasis added), which is of course accompanied by a super-dramatic (and presumably exaggerated/inaccurate) visual aid. Once you give them their "click" on the article, you see a headline that is significantly more subdued. And then you read the article. Here is an actual quote from this article about the "huge" solar storm: "The eruption did not appear severe or extreme, but 'middle of the road, all things considered' said space weather chief Bob Rutledge at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration." Classic. Have you no shame, HuffPost? I mean really. This is why I am relying on HP less and less for my news, other than "News of the Weird," which, not surprisingly, they actually show quite a talent for -- a la the National Inquirer, whose journalistic standards they seem to be emulating." — //theragingmoderate//

=<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The Internet Archive = <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The I <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">nternet Archive is being established by a San Francisco non-profit that is creating a digital library and an e-book lending library. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;"> They describe themselves this way: "The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public." The archives contains information from the web, from television, film, audio and video, texts and software. It was established in 1996.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Internet Archive Home Page <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Discussion of the 9/11 Television News Archive <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Audio from FAA on 9/11 <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">NBC Coverage of 9/11 Memorial, Vice President Biden <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">DateLine 9/11 Retrospective <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">President George Bush, 9/11 <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Peter Jennings, ABC News 9/11 <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">9/11 Was it a Conspiracy? BBC <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Helping Out, 9/11

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">A library of news coverage of the events of 9/11/2001 and their aftermath as presented by U.S. and international broadcasters. A resource for scholars, journalists and the public, the library presents one week (3,000 hours from 20 channels over 7 days) of news broadcasts for study, research and analysis, with select analysis by scholars.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Impact of Social Media
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=<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Fair & Balanced? = <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">media type="youtube" key="0QHMn0dlTMs" width="560" height="315"

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