This article is an opinion about how the Electoral College will prevent Biden from winning in this upcoming election, it goes on to say that the election is rigged and not a fair democracy like it should be.
This is another opinion based article about people not wearing masks. It goes over how wearing a mask is effective and it also points out the irrational things some republicans believe about wearing masks.
If I had seen this article before I posted the digital lecture, I would be including it there.
However, I feel like it’s unfair to add material to a digital lecture when people theoretically may have already read it.
So, I strongly recommend that anyone who has time read this article, called “When Media Treat White Suspects and Killers Better than Black Victims.”
This is an example of an analysis article looking at examples of other articles that exhibited biased framing of a story without telling any lies at all.
Here’s another example of the same thing, regarding coverage of rape cases. (And another one about Brock Turner vs. coverage of Black people who are charged with similar crimes)
Past crimes/past run-ins with the law are rarely relevant to why someone was actually shot in these cases, just as community respect/good grades/athletic skills aren’t relevant to the fact that someone committed (or is alleged to have committed) a crime. But through journalists’ choices of what information to include and where, they can make it seem relevant while still only reporting true things.
If journalists treated all of these cases the same, and always reported the same info, it wouldn’t be a problem (or at least, it would be a different problem). But there are clear patterns of racial bias in these choices– likely subconscious, but nonetheless present.
While you read this digital lecture, please feel free to leave comments with questions/thoughts/ideas/examples/counterarguments/etc. You can also annotate using Hypothesis if you wish. In real-life class, we would absolutely be discussing these issues together as a class, rather than me just telling you what I think.
As I said on the Unit Overview, “news” is not actually one genre, but many different genres of writing. Look around the website of any major newspaper: you’ll see “facts” reporting (what we typically think of when we think of news), obituaries, analysis, opinion writing, summary pieces (like this one), listicles (like on Buzzfeed), interviews, captioned photosets, and more. However, most of these subgenres share common features.
However, the most important thing I want you to take away from this is: Everyone is Biased. Every news story is biased. The question is never, “Is this biased?” but “What is the bias, and how has it affected the reporting?” Bias impacts not just how an article is written, but also which articles get published in the first place. What is considered important/newsworthy?
Bias is not inherently bad, and it doesn’t automatically mean an article is not trustworthy. But news writing — any other kind of writing — always carries implicit assumptions, and implicit messages about what people ought to think about the story. These messages are sometimes hard to detect, especially if they support what most people consider “common sense,” or what you as the reader already think about a topic.
This is what most people think of immediately when they think about “the news.” In facts pieces, the journalist reports the basic, relevant information about a story they think is of public interest. These kinds of articles are typically very short.
For example, this article on some accidentally-poisonous dog food, or this article on some Billy Joel concerts. An article of this type seeks to answer the “5 W’s” as quickly and clearly as possible: to communicate the Who, What, Where, When, and Why of the story.
For the Billy Joel article, that’s probably all there is to the story. He cancelled some concerts due to coronavirus, and is now trying to reschedule them. However, “just the facts” stories can also be deceptive. Even if every piece of information contained within them is true, a journalist can still shape the story, or how it comes across, by choosing which information to include or exclude, which sources to reference, etc.
For example, here is an article in CNN about some of the stealing that happened in early June during the curfew. But we should also be careful when reading: how much of what seems to be fact is actually stated as opinion? (For example, some of the interviewed police officers say, “We think that….”). So, they might be right (and the article doesn’t suggest any reason to doubt their analysis), but they might be wrong.
We should also ask, what perspective are we getting? This article almost exclusively uses statements/information from the NYPD. Other people might have other knowledge about the same night/incident, which could add to, undermine, or just complicate the NYPD’s perspective. What were people in NYC saying on social media on that same night, especially if they were in midtown? What have protest organizers said about it? Were there any essential workers around who were not part of either the protests or the break-ins, but observed some of what was happening? Without doing more research/trying to seek out other perspectives (even if the other perspectives agree with/corroborate the information in this article), we can’t know for sure.
Here is a report from The Insider citing tweets from journalists at several other news agencies, presenting a very different view of the situation. This article says that while police did make some arrests of people in the stores, they also often drove by or otherwise ignored similar instances. This report also reports on facts, but is using different sources and different kinds of evidence: videos and tweets by journalists, rather than mostly interviews with police.
It’s entirely possible that none of the journalists or the other people interviewed are lying, and that everyone is telling the truth to the best of their knowledge. To find the “real” facts about this, or any other news story, you have to think critically and cast a wide net in terms of your information.
Framing a story via omission can happen on purpose, but it often happens entirely on accident. You can also frame a story based on what information you bother to include.
For example, this article about someone who was arrested last night includes information about the woman’s parents’ wealth and occupations. How does that information impact your view of the story? What does the article seem to want us to do with that information?
Analysis reporting is typically longer, and involves synthesizing information from multiple sources and interpreting the implications of the information, rather than simply relaying data. It is more similar to a research paper, but is still written in a journalistic style (shorter paragraphs and sentences than is typical in an academic paper).
What is the difference between “facts reporting” and “analysis,” or between “analysis” and “opinion”? If an analysis piece requires interpretation, doesn’t that mean it’s the writer’s opinion? And shouldn’t an opinion piece include evidence for the writer’s opinion? Yes! These 3 types are not distinct, totally-separate kinds of writing. There are lots of overlap/gray areas.
Generally, we could perhaps say that an analysis piece takes it upon itself to do some of the critical thinking and evaluation of sources/information from multiple sources that I wrote about above.
Here are some examples of what I would consider analysis pieces:
How We Hurt Animals We Cherish
3 Examples of Data Journalism
Working From Home Poses Hurdles for People of Color
The Trump Docket: A Look at the Fights Fueling Trump’s Big Legal Bills
The opinion pages of a newspaper are the place where people are most welcome to explicitly argue for their own point of view. Other opinion pieces don’t necessarily include “arguments” per se, but simply want to inform readers about their experiences with a topic. An opinion writer may speak from their own personal experience with a matter, or refer to other sources of information, similar to an analysis piece. Often, it’s a combination.
The Opinion section also enables newspaper staff to argue for their own perspective on things, which lets them use their platform to argue for specific positions while maintaining their reputation as an “objective” news source. For example, the Washington Post has an entire section on their Opinion page called “The Post’s View.”
Here are some examples of articles put in the “Opinion” section of a newspaper:
There is No Route to the White House Without Latino Voters
The Inanity of Zoom School Suspensions
Jessica Krug is a Symptom of a Bigger Problem
Why U.S. Right Wing Populists and Their Global Allies Disagree Over Big Tech
Just in scrolling through the Opinion pages on various news sites while trying to choose examples for this post, I noticed that it’s not super clear how the sites decide what gets put in the “Opinion” section vs. in other sections of the website. Why is the article above on the importance of Latinx voters in the Opinion section and not in Politics? The author uses a lot of data, not just his own experiences.
How papers decide what is “Opinion” and what is “News” is also shaped by bias.
Byline: It’s the line of a news article that tells you who the article is by. You could say, “I have a byline in The New York Times” or “This intern actually wrote a lot of the article, make sure to put them in the byline too.”
Column: A column is a recurring section of a newspaper/magazine where the same person gets to write about a topic each week/month/etc. Getting your own column is very exciting. Someone might get a review column, an advice column, a fashion column, etc. This term gets its name from print newspapers, when the writing would literally appear in its own column of text on the page.
Copy: In journalism, “copy” means all of the text that is going to be printed in the newspaper. It is the material that will be copied many times when the printing takes place. Example: “I need to submit my copy to my editor by Thursday.”
Editorial: Any piece in a newspaper that is primarily someone’s opinion. This could be written by an editor of the paper, but doesn’t have to be. Also known as an op-ed (opinion-editorial).
Editorial Line: The criteria a publication uses to determine what they will publish and what they will not. Example: “This article doesn’t really fit our editorial line.”
Headline: The title of the article!
Lede (also sometimes spelled Lead): The first sentence of a news story. You may have heard the phrase “bury the lede,” which refers to when someone doesn’t mention the most interesting/most important piece of information until later. (It’s generally bad to bury the lede.)
Off the record: If you’re talking to someone and they say “This is off the record,” they are saying you are not allowed to quote them or attribute the information to them. (The opposite is on-the-record)
Press Release: Sometimes, a person or organization wants to distribute some information to get it into as many newspaper as possible. They could hold a press conference (where journalists attend, listen to information, and ask questions), or they can put out a press release: a written document stating the information. Newspapers can either publish the press release directly or use the information to write their own piece.
Retraction: If you publish something that you later discover was wrong, you need to issue a retraction, or a statement acknowledging and correcting your error. In print newspapers, a retraction is printed in the next edition of the paper. Online, a statement is usually added to the beginning or end of the article saying “This article originally said that ______. Actually, the truth is ____. This article has been edited to correct the error.”
Verification: Generally, news sources try to verify all of their information before they publish it. This means they have to find proof of the same information in more than one, unrelated place. If I cite two articles, but one of them gets its information from the other, that’s not verifying. During the Russia investigation/Trump impeachment proceedings, there were a lot of rumors/allegations that had one source, but that reporters, the FBI, etc. had to try to verify. In high-stakes, secretive situations like that, it can be hard to verify even stuff that is true.
This week, we’ll be focusing on 3 of the most common styles of news: facts, analysis, and opinion. Please click here for an overview of the entire unit.
NO ZOOM CLASS this week, because Monday is a holiday and CUNY is closed. Click here if you prefer to watch a video overview of the week instead of reading.
Due Dates:
Post your examples of news writing to the course site by the end of Wednesday (9/9).
Annotations on your own examples + examples of 2 classmates are due by the end of Friday (9/11)
Respond to my discussion prompt/reply to classmates by the end of Sunday (9/13)
For the first two items, doing this on time is important because you will be interacting with each other’s posts. If you post late, it holds up everyone else’s ability to respond to you.
Posting Examples — 2 pts, completion and timeliness
Annotating Own + Classmate Examples — 2 pts, completion and timeliness
Replying to Discussion Prompt — 2 pts, completion
Please take 5-15 minutes to write on the following questions. As always, you are welcome to share your response with me/the class if you want to, but you are not required to do so.
Here is the link to the digital lecture. Please feel free to leave comments on the post with your questions/thoughts/etc.
Once you’ve read the digital lecture, please search the internet for some news stories! They can be about any topic you want, from the same website or from different ones. Rather than looking at the content, I want you to pay attention to the writing/structure/style of each one.
Please choose:
Please write a post here on the course site with the links to your chosen examples and a 1-2 sentence summary of what each article is and why you chose it.
Please annotate your own examples and the examples of 2 classmates.
When posting your annotations, make sure you have selected the ENG 201 course group. (See the end of my Hypothesis Sign-up video for how to do this). That will allow all of us to easily see each other’s notes– and only each other’s notes– all in the same place.
Use the following questions to guide your annotations:
Also mark anything else you notice that you think might be a genre feature! (Genre features = things that every piece or most pieces of writing within that genre have in common)
Read the annotations that classmates have left on your examples, and the annotations that others have left on the same examples you chose to annotate. If no one annotated your examples, read the annotations on someone else’s examples. The goal is to see others’ observations/analysis of several different sets of articles.
Please leave a comment on this post responding to the following questions:
Then, read the responses to your classmates.
I will collect all of your responses into a master-doc of What We Think About How to Do News Writing.
Welcome to our first real unit: News Reporting!
“News” is not actually one genre, but many different genres of writing. Look around the website of any major newspaper: you’ll see “facts” reporting (what we typically think of when we think of news), obituaries, analysis, opinion writing, summary pieces (like this one), listicles (like on Buzzfeed), interviews, captioned photosets, and more. However, most of these subgenres share common features.
We will spend 2 weeks studying news reporting, and then revisit the topic at the beginning of November for Election Day. I will post detailed instructions for each week individually, similar to how I posted for Week 2.
As your final project for this unit (due at the end of Week 4), you will write 3 imaginary news articles around the same imaginary topic.
Your Options:
If you choose option 1 or 2, please be as creative as you want.
The News Reporting Unit as a whole is worth 15% of your total grade. The News Reporting Unit consists of this week’s activities (Week 3) and next week’s activities (Week 4).
Here is the points breakdown for this unit:
Posting Examples (Week 3) — 2 pts, completion and timeliness
Annotating Own + Classmate Examples (Week 3) — 2 pts, completion and timeliness
Replying to Discussion (Week 3) — 2 pts, completion
Annotating Olivia’s Examples (Week 4) — 2 pts, completion
Replying to Discussion (Week 4)– 2 pts, completion
News Writing Project (Week 4) — 15 pts, see rubric
Unit Reflection (Week 4) — 5 pts, completion and thoroughness
Total: 30 points = 100% for the unit
100% for the unit = 15% of your final grade.
**I will input all the math into Blackboard so you don’t have to worry about calculating what this means for you**
Because most of the due dates/points are concentrated in Week 4, I recommend you start thinking about the final project this week (Week 3), and perhaps even start writing. You can also reflect/write your reflections as you go, rather than waiting until after everything is done.
