With news, more than perhaps any other kind of source, it’s important follow both steps in the information sorting process: companion reading first, to find out if a source is worth paying attention to, then close reading to make sure you’re getting the whole story.
That Indigenous women are likely to be victims of violence is not news: Indigenous women aged 25 to 44 are five times more likely to suffer a violent death than other women in Canada.
The intense media coverage that accompanies traumatic events, such as war, acts of terrorism and natural disasters, can be very disturbing. Certain young people are particularly vulnerable and some can be seriously distressed simply by watching replays of such events.
Parents, educators, health practitioners and others who work with kids can help to lessen anxieties arising from the coverage of catastrophic events.
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more clear than ever that dealing with the misinformation surrounding COVID-19 requires us to come at it from every possible angle. We have needed trusted voices to provide strong, clear and sharable counter-messaging on social media.
Studies have shown that communicating the scientific consensus on a topic can be a helpful strategy in the fight against misinformation. For example, a 2015 study found that “emphasizing the medical consensus about (childhood) vaccine safety is likely to be an effective pro-vaccine message.”
In this lesson, students develop a deeper understanding of scapegoating and othering and how these factors may contribute to the promotion of hatred and intolerance.
While young people use and engage with news differently from older generations, they continue to value concepts such as trustworthiness and fairness.
Like other genres and sub-genres, health and science news has standard tropes that are used by journalists and expected by audiences. These can have an impact on the accuracy and reliability of coverage.
Crime news employs specific narrative frameworks to simplify complex issues, often resulting in biased and stigmatizing portrayals.
As with other kinds of news, newsworthiness is the essential element of health and science coverage. Along with the factors that generally influence newsworthiness, Boyce Rensberger, in A Field Guide for Science Writers, identifies four factors specific to science stories: