News source evaluation: Issues with News

Coleen Christie brings a life of journalistic experience from behind the camera to the stage to shed light on the consumption of media in the Information Age.
KEY MESSAGE(s): The bias is in you. Discussing our news consumption choices and the growing influence of bias.

Today we wrap up our discussion of the media by talking about how the government interacts with and influences the content we see. Now it may be easy to assume that because we live in a free-market capitalist society, the only real regulation of the media is determined by the consumers, but this isn’t necessarily true. The government controls a number of factors including the potential for lawsuits, spectrum licensing, FCC fines, and has even tried to pass a bit of legislation. So we’ll talk about how all of these factors influence the media and end with a discussion of a pretty hotly debated topic these days - net neutrality. Published on Jan 23, 2016

"While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter, and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics."

Xavier Damman is the CEO and cofounder of Storify, an internet start up company that helps people curate what people post on social media into coherent narratives. Xavier moved from Belgium to San Francisco in 2009 with the goal to make sense of the social web to better inform the world on what is happening as reported by people on the ground using social media. He's also the founder of HackDemocracy a meetup group which tries to think about the ways technology can impact democracy for the better. He's a firm believer in sharing, in spreading good ideas and in the power of technology and networks to make the world a better place.

Published on Apr 14, 2014
The role of news in social media was examined by the Pew Research Center who reported that the top three social media sites from which people get their news are Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter and three in ten American adults get at least some of their news through Facebook. Lissette Padilla and Gabriel Mizrahi discuss the problems with getting your news from your friends instead of an accredited news source, in this clip from the Lip News.

Published on Aug 28, 2014
Doesn’t it seem like a lot of online news sites have moved beyond reporting the news to openly inciting your outrage (and your page views)? News analyst Sally Kohn suggests — don’t engage with news that looks like it just wants to make you mad. Instead, give your precious clicks to the news sites you truly trust.

This Robert Greenwald documentary, made during the George W. Bush Presidency, provides an in-depth look at Fox News. Showing extensive Fox News footage to illustrate and Roger Ailes' daily memos to reporters to illustrate its points, the film argues that Fox News pushes Republican talking points into the national consciousness, functioning as a propaganda organ. It takes us behind the scenes with interviews with former Fox reporters and employees.