Resources for Teachers - News

Health and science journalism norms and practices

Health and science reporting is influenced both by economic norms (the conditions and constraints in which journalists do their jobs) and journalistic norms, such as objectivity and balance.[1] Both of these have an impact on how reporting on these topics is done.

Suffragettes and Iron Ladies - Lesson

This lesson considers how the media portrays women in politics. Students explore capsule biographies of female political leaders, from ancient times to current events – crafted from snippets of media coverage such as newspapers, magazines, TV news and encyclopedias – to understand bias in how female politicians are portrayed.

Impacts and consequences of crime coverage

The tropes and industry practices of crime news have profound societal impacts, ranging from distorting public opinion to influencing policy and causing tangible harm to individuals and communities.

Crime news

Crime news is a highly developed sub-genre that reflects organizational priorities, audience preferences and systemic biases. This is because “the news media does not cover systematically all forms and expressions of crime and victimizations. It emphasizes some crimes and ignores other crimes. It sympathizes with some victims while blaming other victims.”

The Environment Canada hoax: a news story that's full of hot air

If anyone still doubts that youth need to learn how to evaluate online information, those doubts should have been dispelled by a recent hoax perpetrated by the group called the Yes Men. This group, which has a history of staging fake press conferences, decided to draw attention to Canada's position at the Copenhagen conference on climate change by creating a number of fake Web sites purporting to be, among others, the Copenhagen summit site, the Wall Street Journal, and Environment Canada's site. While it didn't take long for Environment Canada to make a statement exposing the hoax, by that time many journalists had reported the story as fact and the story had been widely distributed by wire services.