click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Interactive Skills for Students How to Analyze the News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Why Learn This Skill?  News is noteworthy information. Usually it relates to current events or issues.  You can gather valuable information about events that happen in your community, in the United States, and around the world by watching or reading news reports.  Analyzing news and news stories is an important part of being an active citizen.  Developing this skill will also help you form educated opinions and make well-reasoned decisions.

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Learn It! What are news sources?

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Learn It! News is published in print publications that include:

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Learn It! News is also presented on television.

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Learn It! Some radio stations broadcast the news.

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Learn It! On the Internet, news is available through Web sites.

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Learn It! You will use several different skills to analyze the news you read or watch.

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Learn It!

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Learn It!

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Learn It!

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Learn It!

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Think Critically To apply critical thinking skills when you analyze the news, you should:  distinguish facts from opinions.  ask yourself questions about who created the story and why.  notice how the news story was produced and the decisions made to bring the story to the public.  recognize and think about any bias in the story.  evaluate the quality and reliability of the news source.

How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Analyze Visuals Does the story include images, video, or graphics? What decisions were made in creating the story? What visuals were chosen? Do these images add information to the story, or do they illustrate information that is already presented? What feelings or reactions are created by the images? Are there graphs, charts, or other representations of data? Is source material given for data? Does the data contribute to the message of the story?

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Evaluate Sources What are reliable sources?

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Evaluate Sources What are reliable sources?

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Evaluate Sources What are reliable sources?

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Evaluate Sources What are reliable sources?

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Evaluate Sources What are reliable sources?

Fact Opinion Distinguish Fact from Opinion How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Distinguish Fact from Opinion It is important to be able to recognize facts and opinions in a news story. Then, you can determine if the information is likely to be accurate or likely to be an appeal to emotions. Fact Definition: something that is true and can be supported with evidence or data Opinion Definition: a point of view or interpretation of facts

Bias Recognize Bias How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Recognize Bias Recognizing bias helps you analyze and understand the information presented to you. Bias Definition: Having a pre-existing opinion, attitude, or belief about something.  News stories contain some bias.  The message in any news story reflects the attitudes, beliefs, and ideas of the author.

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation

Recognize Bias Who produced the story? Is this a well-known How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Recognize Bias Who produced the story? Some news sources try to present information about events with little bias. Examples: article in a major newspaper story on national network news broadcast Is this a well-known and reliable news source? Is this an opinion-based story? Some news sources support a belief or cause. Examples: article posted on a political party Web site editorial about a news event

Who paid the costs to produce the story? How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Recognize Bias Who paid the costs to produce the story? Who owns the publication, station, or the Web site? government department special interest group political organization corporation These groups may try to convince people to support a particular point of view.

What is the purpose of the story? How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Recognize Bias What is the purpose of the story? Level of Bias Used for many news stories has least bias since it is meant to present facts To inform To entertain May include facts, but also may include opinions or beliefs if selling a product, idea, or course of action, might be more biased Intended to persuade, or convince a person to think a certain way may include facts and data but will also contain more opinions and, therefore, more bias To persuade

What content was included? What content was excluded? How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Recognize Bias What decisions were made in creating the story? What content was included? What did the author focus on? In what order are the facts or events presented? Does that influence how you interpret them? What content was excluded? What do you want to know that is missing from the story? Why might the author have chosen to exclude information? Was it due to lack of space, or was it to present a particular point of view?

An audience is a group of people who hear or read a news story. How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Recognize Bias Who is the audience? An audience is a group of people who hear or read a news story. News is created for specific audiences. General audience American public People around the world Specific group people of a specific city or region people of a certain age or gender members of a political party

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Apply It! Ask yourself: After reading a news story, what have you learned? Has what you learned affected your opinion? Are you surprised at the amount of news sources there are?

click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation How To Analyze The News click your mouse or hit enter to advance animation Remember:  Analyzing news media helps you be an active citizen.  Think critically by determining what information is factual and what information is biased.  Consider the source of the news and how the story is presented to help you draw conclusions about what you have read or heard.