Sources Written discussion assignment – Evaluating News Sources

This is a written online discussion assignment. You do not have to turn in anything. The entire assignment will be conducted within this discussion thread. There are 4 questions below that you must answer for full credit. You also must post your responses before you can view others’ responses. 
 
Part 1: Every day we read news stories that we seek out, that friends and family send us, or that appear in our social media feed. How can we figure out which stories are credible and worthy of our attention?

Go to Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media site where you have an account (if you do not have an account, you can try searching some key terms on any search site). Select two news stories that show up on your feed. For each, write the title, the authors name, the date of publication, and the source. Also include what sources the author’s cites in the news article, such who the author spoke to to gain the information or if it was reported by someone else. Also include which social media site where the news stories were posted. Response should be about 3-4 sentences.

It is very important to know the source of  information we see and read. The next step is to evaluate the web address. Established news sources will typically have a web address that ends in .com, such as nbcnews.com or washingtonpost.com. Much good journalistic content is available at .org and .net addresses, but be suspicious and dig deeper when you see an ending other than .com. Of course, all .coms are not reliable news sources, this is just a preliminary step to suss out reliability. 

For each news story you identified, write down the source. Is it a “.com,” “.net,” “.org,” or something else? Go to that web page and report two other stories you see on the site.

Story Title #2 and what it is about in one or two sentences.  
What are other reputable organizations saying about the source? Use the following sites to locate the news organization’s position on the political or ideological spectrum as posited by these media “watchdogs.” 
https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/how-to-spot-types-of-media-bias
https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart
https://adfontesmedia.com/

Use this website to see what the composition of the typical audience for the source is: https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/interactives/media-polarization/
 
Check the labeling of the article to assess the type of content. Is the article labeled as news, opinion, or analysis? We often hear that bias is never good.  But, we read opinion because it is opinion. The best opinion publishers will label the content as opinion, to alert the reader that the content is the opinion of the writer.  Reading a biased article or an opinion piece is not bad or wrong. The important point is to realize what you are reading: Is it a factual news article or an opinion piece to express a point of view.
Check the two articles you selected to see if they are labeled as opinion.” Think about ways you can find out whether the piece is news or opinion, if it is not labeled. What kinds of language in the article might provide a clue as to whether it is news or opinion?

4. What do you conclude from all the information  you gathered?  Put together all the parts of the assignment to reach a conclusion on the content of the articles you chose. 
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