Two important dates are approaching this week. One is February 29, that extra day we receive during the shortest month of the year every four years. I’m sure there will be some Leap Year sales and celebrations. There might be some mothers-to-be who are hoping to wait to give birth until March 1 to avoid their child, only having a birthday once every four years.
Another important date is March 3, which is the day Minnesota, and many other states, hold a primary election to help determine who might be the best choice for a presidential candidate. (At times, the cynical part of me wonders if election years are held during a leap year so as to give politicians one extra day to besiege us with campaign material.)
How are these two days related? Stick around and find out!
I recently taught a unit to some of my 7th-graders on media bias. We talked about how to determine reliable sources and how to see the bias that some sources bring. When writing research papers, one should figure out the validity of the facts that are found. Since we’re long removed from the age where we would find all that information in encyclopedias, magazines, and newspapers, students need to be aware of the treachery of some areas of the Internet.
When teaching material like media bias, I try to stay very neutral. We look at the difference between conservatives and liberals without judging. We look at the same story from two different vantage points without judging.
For instance, we looked at two separate stories about the impeachment of President Trump. One was slanted in the direction of: the President should undoubtedly be thrown out of office, while the other painted him as a person falsely accused of a crime. Our goal was to figure out the words and phrases which showed this bias. We started with headlines and also looked throughout the stories for key words and phrases that tilted the reader in a particular direction.
We also looked at some news stories from Detroit and started with just the headline. Based on that, the kids had to predict what the story would be about. Ideas were all over the place, but not always close to the point. Headlines make a big difference! Properly selected wording can steer the reader to a way of thinking without reading a word of the article.
The point to the students was this: In a world increasingly assaulted by strong opinions online, people need to be cautious about what they read. Don’t just believe things because they appear with a fancy headline and exclamation points!
One problem is that we used to think we could rely on newspapers and television news programs just to give us the facts. That’s not always the case anymore. CNN is a more liberal news station and Fox News is more conservative. Both stations take facts and surround them with words and bias to try and tell the viewer whether an opinion is right or not. The point that’s missed is that opinions are just that: someone’s idea, without a right or wrong answer. You might not agree with someone’s opinion, but that doesn’t invalidate their right to believe what they do.
Social media is just as bad. I have friends on Facebook who fall all over the spectrum. I see posts about how President Trump is the most evil person ever to hold office and I see posts about how he is the best thing to happen to this country since George Washington led us to our independence. The funny thing is that I saw similar things when President Obama was in office, though reversed. I’m likely to see the same things whenever there is another new president, whether it is this year or in four years.
We need to realize that, quite often, the truth is somewhere in-between what we see in these types of posts. It’s hard to judge a President while he’s in office. There were many people who did not like Ronald Reagan while he was Commander-in-Chief, but history has looked more kindly on his terms. Some of President Obama’s policies have led to positive things while President Trump is in office, just as some of President Bush’s initiatives came to fruition when President Obama took over.
What I really hoped to get through to my students was to pause when they come across these types of stories that lean in a certain direction. We should be able to read a newspaper or see something online or watch a broadcast and be left to come to a conclusion by ourselves, but that’s rarely so anymore. Too often, we see a headline and immediately become infuriated, either because we automatically believe it or because it paints a picture that we disagree with about a person or idea.
Even though it’s a leap year, we should not leap to conclusions. We should become discerning readers and viewers, questioning everything. The powers behind the “news” know that we have short attention spans, though, so they, often rightly so, assume we won’t explore the topic more deeply.
Please take some time to make decisions based on multiple sources. There are so many important discussions going on in our country right now, and they will only find viable solutions when liberals and conservatives and everyone in-between recognize that extremes are rarely the right answer. My hope is that my students are taking a step in that direction, no matter what their beliefs are.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is proditomania, which means the feeling or belief that everyone is out to get you, as in, “The politician felt proditomania as he saw negatively biased stories about him online.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!