elphabaforpresidentofgallifrey:
elphabaforpresidentofgallifrey:
ok so AOC’s tips for consuming news critically are???? phenomenal??? they’re better than my entire undergraduate education in political communication. it took my entire career up until this point in news media to learn this stuff. she is SPOT on.
to expand on a few of her points:
1) If you like a piece of reporting someone has done, follow the JOURNALIST, not the outlet. Digital news organizations come and go, traditional news lays people off, and freelancers don’t always work for the same place, but someone who really puts in the work that you come to trust their reporting is valuable. You have no idea what it means to be able to say “you know, I don’t know if I believe what all these news outlets are saying on this, but I know X reporter does a lot of work on this and I trust their work on it.”
2) In that same vein, you should trust public radio and print outlets more than TV (or YouTubers - both TV and YouTubers are looking for views and ad money). Seriously, I work in TV, and this is NOT a knock on TV producers at all, it’s just that TV has to work on a 24/7 news cycle, and sometimes they get stuff wrong because they have to do it quickly, or on a certain production schedule, or it has to be visual, or it has to get viewers. It is often the written/print reporters translating their scripts into published articles online who are doing the fact checking, if any. This isn’t to say all print and public radio is gospel (it sure as shit isn’t), but it’s a good place to start.
3) Most people can’t afford a news subscription, however if you can afford Spotify or Netflix, you should subscribe to your local newspaper or public radio station. What AOC doesn’t mention here about newspapers specifically, is that you need to REALLY check if that newspaper has a) been gobbled up by a hedge fund b) has some sort of weird conservative slant. Do some research first. Also, if you can’t afford a local newspaper subscription, 99.99% of the time your library card includes subscriptions to some sort of news service, that will get you behind many paywalls. Check your library system’s digital services for what news services they offer and how to log in.
4) Just think before you share. Before you reblog or retweet something, do a quick Google. Especially when someone is like “the news isn’t talking about this!” when there probably are articles about it, maybe even with further information. It really helps to look.
All of this, cosigned by a newspaper reporter. I am impressed by how clear and nuanced AOC is on this issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s discussed this with reporters before, it has the ring of an insider’s perspective.
I would like to add/expand with:
1. Find out who owns your local newspaper in the city or county where you live. It’s on their masthead. There *are* independent publications still out there. While conglomerate ownership doesn’t automatically mean that a publication is bad - they’re the ones with the resources to dedicate to larger projects, after all - there are absolutely more complications that can be going on behind the scenes. I’ve seen wonderful independent papers turn to trash after a corporate buyout, because they cut their staff, chased off the good reporters, and inserted a corporate atmosphere where it didn’t belong. Also, larger papers aren’t automatically better than smaller ones.
2. Go regional or local as opposed to national news, whenever possible. Local reporters have their boots on the ground long-term and know their own communities. National media outlets are in and out in a short period of time, and they often miss nuance and detail. Local reporters have ins with the people they know, relationships built over time, that often give access to information CNN and etc don’t get.
3. Newspaper editorial pages are a forgotten art. Newspapers have an “editorial voice” of opinion editorials, often written by the editor in chief but occasionally written by an editorial board. Letters to the editor are from anybody and they don’t necessarily represent a publication’s views. The editorial voice -does-. That’s what you want to look at when determining what a newspaper stands for.
4. You can talk to reporters!!!!! Please talk to reporters!!!! We are not shadowy figures, we are people. Usually with very visible contact information. If you see a story that is unbalanced or incorrect, please pick up the phone or send an email to the reporter explaining what’s wrong. We want to know. No self-respecting reporter wants their byline on wrong information. Chances are good they will be happy to run a correction, or even want to do a follow up story to better explain or clarify the issue. Sometimes breaking news is chasing a moving target. That’s just the way life and deadline driven reporting works. We have to keep pushing, keep listening, keep asking. Don’t think you can’t influence that! You absolutely can.
on point 4 - you can find reporters contact info a few ways
a) click their byline (name) at the top of the article and it should go to some sort of author page. it should list their email or have an email button.
b) look for a masthead page. this could be in the “about” “meet the team” sort of sections of the website, those will also have links to author pages or contact info
c) look for the journalists on twitter. some are not very active on twitter but do list their emails in their bio.
on point 2 - this also means that if there’s something going on in your community that you want the news to cover, don’t just @ a news outlet on social media, send a direct tip to a LOCAL reporter. national news outlets monitor local feeds, and local reporters aren’t the ones monitoring the social media accounts anyway. even if you can’t find their email, direct @ ing the reporter on twitter or instagram will go very far (check which platform the reporter uses most, it’s usually twitter).
on correcting a mistake - if you see a headline or part of an article that is wrong, misleading or, yes even bigoted in some way, you can do something about it. again, direct contact with the person who wrote it helps, but you can also look on twitter and the masthead that i mentioned before if you find it on the website to find who the editor might have been. this depends on how big the paper/magazine/digital pub is, and what section it was in, so it might take some guessing. if you find who it probably was on the masthead, you can include their email when you email the reporter, especially if it involves a headline, which reporters often don’t write themselves. if you have to look on twitter, you can search twitter for the @ handle of the publication and then go to the “people” tab of the search and check people’s bios to see who MIGHT be the editor who worked on this, and either email or @ them too.
also, if you’re emailing about something like, let’s say misgendering a trans person, or misleading language about a police shooting, it’s helpful to have backup. include links to things like the AP Style Guide (like how they recently updated to make it clear you should never say “officer involved shooting”, and you should capitalize Black), or the Trans Journalists’ Association style guide. If you’re trying to get them to cover a story you’ve seen on social media, include links to those posts. include links to other news outlets who have covered something to show this is important or to prove that other news outlets already made the correction you are asking for, or got it correctly the first time.
*** oh and one last thing i forgot to mention! stop sharing screenshots of articles! if the article reported on something valuable share the link! you can share a screenshot with the link, but these days, clicks mean everything and reporters are screwed over when a post of a screenshot of their article goes viral but not the article itself. especially if its about a less visible issue, lots of clicks will tell the editors this is something they should allow their reporters to pursue more often. the only time you should share a screenshot rather than the article is when they are like a terrible outlet like f*x news that does not deserve your clicks but you’re holding them accountable, or its some awful opinion column you’re commenting on that you dont want to give any clicks. if you’re sharing an article on instagram, share a screenshot and pop that link in your bio/link tree at least! people worked hard to report on that!
(via napoleanbonafarte)
