Fair News or Fake News: Identifying Media Bias

Everyday we are confronted with news from organizations that have their own agenda. Perhaps they have a political agenda, or maybe they are writing sensationalist headlines to boost their ratings. Either way, it's important that we, as informed citizens, are able to recognize the bias in the news we are exposed to, and are able to separate fact from opinion.

This class will examine the way we get our news, and the way news sources can amplify political views. We will compare and contrast the way different mainstream news outlets cover similar stories, and examine the way they select their headlines. This class will also examine the way social media can influence the news we see, and the way a websites algorithm can lead to amplification of political opinions.

The majority of this class will be discussion based with students working with me to identify the types of bias we see in news articles today. There will be an activity in which students will visit the websites of major news outlets to compare/contrast their new coverage, and we will share our findings as a group. Finally, students will discuss the ways we can better curate our own media consumption, so that we are not consistently exposed to the same bias and are aware of differing viewpoints.