Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.

The tea: You need to read the news

nick tea

It is important for everyone to read the news and be media literate so they can understand what is happening in the world around them and be good global citizens. Someone reading this might be thinking, “Of course a newspaper would say reading the news is salient,†but it would be illogical to think it is not paramount to be up to date on the news. It is illogical to think people can move through their lives and think they are unaffected by what is going on around them.

In “Popular Culture in the Classroom: Teaching and Researching Critical Media Literacy,†the authors define the concept of critical media literacy as “understanding how the print and nonprint texts that are part of everyday life help to construct their knowledge of the world and the various social, economic and political positions they occupy within it.†They go on to say it is also “about creating communities of active readers and writers who can be expected to exercise some degree of agency in deciding what textual positions they will assume or resist as they interact in complex social and cultural contexts.†Basically, being media literate means knowing how things we consume affect our opinions and worldview and how choosing proper sources and also understanding the nature of those sources will benefit our knowledge of what is happening around us.

I invite everyone reading this to at their next opportunity search the internet for the “media bias chart.†Various forms of this chart have been circulating online for a while now, so I’m not sure who to attribute when it comes to whom created it. However, it is a handy reference guide for someone to learn more about how they get their news, and it essentially redefines “news†into three categories: news, fair and unfair analysis of the news and nonsense that has no place in public discourse.

At the top of every chart I have seen, at the intersection of political neutrality and original fact reporting, is the Associated Press and Reuters. These two sources will never steer anyone wrong when it comes to reporting on what exactly happened. Other news sources on the chart in the top green box, meaning true news reporting, at varying degrees of fact reporting and light political bias are ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal as well as local newspapers.

Never underestimate the value of local news. Many people are quick to get swept up in the grandeur and the flashiness of national and international news sources, which are important, but they are not as important as what is going on in the local community. Local newspapers report on issues and events affecting people’s day-to-day lives. Just as local elections make more of an impact than national elections, local reporting is more relevant to people’s lives than national reporting. I highly recommend people adding a local newspaper to a proper news diet.

Further down the chart exists a yellow box, which indicates the news sources within it are fair interpretations of the news. These news sources are not substitutes for original reporting. They simply interpret the news and can add a more nuanced view on one’s own view of what is happening. At this point, the chart starts shifting more toward a conservative or a liberal bias, but I would argue it is fair to want to read interpretations of the news because people will inevitably have opinions on what is happening. 

What is vital to remember is these sources are for analysis purposes only and are not substitutes for original reporting. Fair sources for news analysis, with varying degrees of political bias, include The New Yorker, Vox, MSNBC, The Economist, Vanity Fair and National Review.

Next is the orange box, again further down the chart, which indicates unfair interpretations of the news. These should not be reliable sources of analysis. I would say if someone particularly likes reading one of these sources, then they do not have to give them up. But consume their message fully knowing they have a reputation for being unfair. Take what they say with a grain of salt. These sources include The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed News, The New York Post and the Drudge Report.

At the bottom of the chart is the red box, which indicates the sources within are purely nonsense and should be removed from anyone’s media consumption. These include Occupy Democrats, Patribotics, The National Enquirer, The Blaze, Breitbart News and Infowars.

Obviously, I did not mention every news outlet in existence, and some of these classifications are open to interpretation, but remember analysis is not a substitute for actual news. Analysis has its place, but it should be no one’s go-to for what is happening in the world. The point of being media literate is understanding what is happening and then also understanding one’s place within it. I think this is crucial for anyone seeking to find or understand their place in the world. I do not believe you can find your place in the world until you have made an effort to comprehend it.

And that’s the tea on that. 


Similar Posts