Mary Robb, a social studies teacher at Andover High School in Massachusetts, has been teaching news literacy for 25 years. The longtime educator sees teaching students how to critically read the news and online information swirling around them as an essential civics lesson.
I sat in as Robb taught a group of mostly juniors and seniors one day last year. After a lively in-class exercise comparing two articles about an accident between a car and a cyclist, I got a chance to ask the teens some questions about their media diets and reasons for taking the course.
One thing that stood out? None of the students — even in an elective course about media — confessed any interest in becoming a journalist. A few could name news organizations they trusted but others said the news came to them through social media or what friends shared or what they overheard as their parents were watching television. They had questions for me, too, including several about the pitfalls, challenges, and ethics of being a journalist.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been unprepared, then, to read a new report from News Literacy Project that surveyed American teenagers about their attitudes towards journalists. But “Biased,” “Boring,” and “Bad”: Unpacking perceptions of news media and journalism among U.S. teens still wasn’t a fun read. The online survey asked 756 teenagers (ages 13-18) nationwide about their views and found:
An overwhelming majority of teens (84%) described news media with negative words — often characterizing media as intentionally deceptive or invoking negative emotional feelings. The top five words submitted by teens were “Fake, “Crazy, “Boring, “Biased,” and “Sad,” according to a very depressing word cloud published in the report.
About half of the teens surveyed believe that journalists frequently “make up details, such as quotes” and “pay for sources.” When the researchers for News Literacy Project grouped responses together, the most mentioned perceived area of improvement for professional journalists was being honest and getting the facts right. More than a third of teens believe journalists could improve by simply “Telling the truth,” “Fact checking,” and “Not lying.”
The survey draws on students who also responded to an earlier survey. From that report:
A little less than half (45%) of teens said journalists do more to harm democracy than to protect it. And about two-thirds of teens (67%) said they are “a little” or “not at all” concerned about the sharp decline in news organizations. With more news organizations relying on reader-generated revenue and messaging about their role as democratic watchdogs, this is concerning.
The majority of teens (80%) said that professional journalists do not produce information that is “more impartial” than other kinds of content creators online.
Adults, of course, are also distrustful of news media in the United States. The teens’ responses mirror widespread beliefs in older Americans. Just 28% of Americans say they trust the news media “a great deal” or “a fair amount” — and it’s worse if you look at one end of the political spectrum. Only 8% of Americans who identify as Republicans have confidence in the media to report news “fully, accurately and fairly,” according to Gallup numbers released last month.
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