Still from video by Dominic Cameratta, via Storyful, at the NY Times
Way back on September 28, Jake Hagman and MDIA100 hosted a visit from John Silva and DeMario Phipps Smith of the DC-based News Literacy Project.
Hurricane Ian was hitting Florida, and Silva opened with the question of the sharks swimming around the floodwaters (and social media): real or fake? According to the New York Times a couple days later, “For Once, the Hurricane Shark Was Real” (mostly); so we should actually believe everything we read!
Just kidding! Silva advised looking twice and asking questions about shocking stories, checking for red flags. He emphasized the distinctions between news and other kinds of stories: Some stories aim to inform us, for example, while others aim to influence us. At the same time, he also engaged how those boundaries have become increasingly blurry, so that a seemingly basic concept like “misinformation” has become politicized.
There was some interesting Q&A; with only fifty minutes of class time, there were lots of big questions left on the table, but you can start with a recording of the presentation, and then head over to the NLP website for more!
