Flocken Media

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For this lesson we will look at this article: CLICK HERE

Not all articles are as transparent as this one so it works very well as a teaching/learning example to point out some of the major problems you have to watch out for as a media literate member of society.

This is a just a small crash course to media literacy and if you want something more in-depth to train yourself to be media literate you can check this article and many other resources online.

What is media literacy? Media literacy is the ability to identify different types of media and understand the messages they're sending.

Okay, let’s deconstruct this article and find out what happened here.

First let’s identify the pieces which are important:

Headline: A headline's purpose is to quickly and briefly draw attention to the story. (source: Wikipedia)

Lede: The lede not only tells what the story is about, but it also invites the reader to read further. (Source: SP college) The lede further explains what the article is about and why you should keep reading.

Sources: In journalism, a source is a person, publication, or other record or document that gives timely information. (source: Wikipedia)

So we need to explore these elements to be media literate.

HEADLINE The headline states "Looters swipe $2.4M worth of watches from SoHo Rolex store: police sources”

So we can assume from this headline that the story is about the theft of $2.4M worth of Rolexes from a store in the SoHo neighbourhood in New York City.

You might notice (if you are media literate) that the headline says "police sources" - it is human nature to ignore this part. We read by taking the most valuable pieces of a sentence and forgetting the rest. Most people will read this headline and gloss over the “police sources” part. Our brain does a little bit of work for us and eliminates this piece of information. Now that you are reading my article you may even remember not noticing the “police sources” part of this headline. I even did this myself.

LEDE The lede of this story is: Looters broke into a Soho Rolex store during rioting and stole $2.4 million worth of watches, police sources said Monday.

This being the lead is very important to media literacy. The writers of this article are leading you to believe that if you continue reading you will read about the events that unfolded that ended when $2.4M worth of watches were stolen.

But if you continue reading the article you will find out that the information in the lede simply is not true. No watches were stolen.

In general, people believe (consciously or subconsciously) they do not need to click the link to the article, the headline is enough information on the subject to get a picture of the story. That is the point of headlines! Of those who do click-through to the article, many do not read past the lede. If you were to do this with the linked article, you would likely believe that 2.4 million dollars worth of watches were stolen from this store. When in reality $0 worth of watches were stolen from this store.

SOURCES I went through the article and found all the sources within it, let’s explore them. Source 1: a police source (unnamed) Source 2: the store’s spokesman (unnamed) Source 3: NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller

The headline tells us that this article is about stolen watches, so of these 3 sources, who is the most credible person to tell us about a stolen watch? Likely it would be the spokesman of the store in question, so let’s look at what he said: “no watches of any kind were stolen, as there weren’t any on display in the store. There were simply windows broken and some vitrines smashed.”

This is contradictory to the headline. This is contradictory to the lede.

Also examine who the source is: the store’s spokesman. Why are they an unnamed source?

The police sources get the starring role in this article. They are featured in both the headline and the lede. You must also examine what it means when they name “Police sources.” as a source of information for the article. Does it mean multiple police officers gave this information? Does it mean two guys from the mail room with no access to any crime information? How credible is this unnamed source of information?

And I don’t want to leave this without looking at the only named source in this article: Source 3: NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller

What does he say: outside “agitators” with ties to anarchist groups were using the George Floyd protests to loot and spark violence between cops and demonstrators.

He is not quoted. It simply states what he said. This is important. It likely means he did not comment directly to the NY Post. How did they get this information?

Why is NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller named, when the other sources are not named? This is to add a level of legitimacy to the article. Their story has no other named sources, which means it doesn't have any way for the average person to verify the facts presented in the article. They needed to add an official, named source to make you think "this is a story of value" - adding a named source to a faulty news article often adds the legitimacy it needs to pass as news for the media illiterate.

One more source which is not listed which I would like to examine and that source is: the NY Post If you check this AllSides graphic it has a list of most major media outlets and which side their news leans to - whether it’s left, right or centre political. This is helpful to know so you can try to figure out what exactly a news agency is trying to say with their story.

**Deconstructing this story is media literacy. **

To be media literate you must consider:

1- Is your article from a credible news agency, can you find this story on another news agency which is more credible or equally credible? NY Post does not have constantly reliable news - can I find any other major mainstream media source?

2- Identify the most important source within the article, is that information highlighted by the headline of the article, and the lede?

3- Is the most credible source in the article even a credible source at all? When an article identifies a source as "a police source" or "a protester" it is something to think critically about. If the news agency cannot name a reliable source - the article is likely not very reliable. Check the credibility of sources named and unnamed as well as their credentials. A story about climate change is unlikely to be very credible if their key source is a scientist who is a registered flat earther and got their degree from a cereal box.

4- Check snopes and google to try to help you identify the truth of any media but particularly news media, and especially during ongoing situations like #blacklivesmatter and #coronavirus. In the case of this article, there is no snopes post currently, however a quick google search of "$2.4M Rolex looted" comes up with many Reddit threads questioning the validity of the article, and no other valid news sources.

5- Look for keywords that point to problems within an article to make you suspicious of news articles, something that identifies where their bias is pointing. For me, in this article, the words "looters" "swipe" "rioting" "looted" the fact that “agitators” is in quotations and not the rest of the quote, all these words show bias and that bias is not in support of the protests. If it were the article would be very different - the headline and lede would not be so - but even if it was, they would use words like "protest" "protesting" and NYPD Police Commissioner John Miller would be quoted in full.

We recorded with Jag & Ellen yesterday for our podcast, Two Girls, One Band.

We have a lot of editing projects backed up because of (you know what). Soooo.  Austin did 17 hours of editing today. Zzzzzzzz

We have been procrastinating a lot but now that corona is here we have been working hard on editing the podcast and episodes will hit your ears really quick! 

Two Girls, One Band. Two Songs, One Interview.