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News Literacy
As high school publications, we are some of the first exposures young adults have to news in their area. Not many students at Utica wake up in the morning to watch the news or read the newspaper, but we have hundreds of people viewing our content every day. What makes it so different? Students today spend so much time on social media and they want news that they can relate to and see themselves in, which is exactly what we provide in our Arrow newspaper, Warrior yearbook, and Photo of the Day series on @uhswarrior.
This year I've been lucky enough to attend two events for National News Literacy Week, presented by News Literacy Project. One was "Behind the scenes with the Washington Post TikTok Team," which taught me a lot about how people get their news and how misinformation spreads so quickly. It was interactive and I was able to ask questions about reliable sources and how to start a TikTok account for our own newspaper.
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The other that I attended was "How student journalists are filling the gap in local news." This really stressed the importance of news literacy and how important we are as student journalists. We're a source of news for so many students and it really gave me an enforced perspective on how important it is to make sure we can be that reliable platform that people need.
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With the current technology in the world, it's rather difficult to separate fact from fiction. Some journalists would rather interview from their computer than get out there and talk to people face-to-face. With this, we also see an increase in misinformation and AI. As a student journalist and editor, this makes my job far harder. When editing a story, I have to wonder whether they made these quotes up or just asked a singular question over Snapchat or Instagram. I have to keep an eye out for signs of plagiarism and AI generated text in every story I read.
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From the beginning of the year, I teach our staff to follow AP format and credit properly when using sources or content from outside of our staff. It was tricky at first for our staff to remember the guidelines so a lot of that aspect comes in during the editing process. While I do my best to make sure we are using our own photos and content as often as possible, we also have a subscription to Tribune Content Agency where we pay to use their photos in our publications. This is where ensuring proper crediting comes in because, while we are publishing it, it does not belong to us.
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Our audience is heavily involved on social media, getting an influx of information every day, but it's crazy how much misinformation is out there (and how much people fall for it). As a leader in our newspaper and yearbook, it's my job to promote strong news literacy to our staffs. People should be able to trust our publications and its content to be correct.
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It's more than just fact-checking. It promotes critical thinking skills to our staff to make them think, "Is this really true?" As stated in the editing section at the top of this page, we do our best to combat misinformation with lots of peer review. From the first piece I read, I can usually tell how trustworthy the reporter is. As an editor, it's obviously part of the job to not only fact check and ensure that all content is correct, but to give context.
One of the easiest ways to do this from the start is to interview reliable sources. Instead of reporting a score you overheard from someone who wasn't at the game, check one many websites that post our scores or ask someone on the team. It is important to identify your reliable sources based on the content needed. If you need to know when the next meeting of a club is, ask the president or adviser. If something doesn't sound quite right, it very well may not be.
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Context can be the difference between people loving and hating a piece of content. For example, when doing a poll, it is important to give context as to where and how the information was obtained. Did you just ask your three friends or did you ask 100 people. Most of our polls are conducted through our Instagram or on uhsarrow.org, so around most of our polls, you'll see how many were surveyed and how.
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Often times I will find myself doubting information and shooting a quick email to a staff member or running out for a quick chat with a student. It's better to ask and find out before publication than have to be told after. This also entails taking responsibility for mistakes that do slip through, and correcting them to the best of our abilities. Posting a photo every day tends to lead to at least a couple mistakes over the years. I've gotten names wrong in captions for my Photo of the Day series, but as soon as it was brought to my attention, I corrected it. The idea of Photo of the Day is to show what is going on in our community, and feedback from our audience really helps us ensure that we are as accurate as possible.
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Newer journalists often let their writing be swayed by their own opinion or who is convenient for them to interview instead of remaining unbiased and representative of everyone. On our "Consider This" page (featuring students' hot takes), while editing, I found that there were 16 seniors, two juniors, and two sophomores on the spread (14 were guys and six were girls). And guess who was working on the spread... two senior boys. I made them go out and re-interview to balance the page to about eight seniors, five juniors, and six sophomores (with eleven guys and nine girls). Not only am I encouraging news literacy, but I'm also forcing them to create diverse content.
It's easy to get wrapped up in our own feelings, but most stories are not about us or our opinions. It's about informing and representing our audience and their opinions. I always do my best to state just the facts and I hold my staff to the same standard. All voices deserve to be heard. When interviewing on a controversial topic, get quotes from those for it and those that oppose it. The reader should be able to decide for themself how they feel and what they choose to believe.
Let photos and quotes tell the story, and your writing can guide it through.