Welcome back! Please turn in your reflections What do you call 4 bull fighters standing in quicksand? Quattro sinko

Lesson #5 Verifying Breaking news How do news stories, details, and facts unfold and change over time? How can creators and consumers of news and information verify the credibility of information about an event?

Lunch Date rewind How might the woman’s biases and stereotypes have influenced the way she responded to the various African American men she encountered throughout the film? How did the African American man in the restaurant respond to the woman’s mistake? Why do you think the director would give the man that reaction? What do the final minutes suggest about the power of stereotypes?

In the previous lesson, we explored a range of biases, including implicit, explicit, and confirmation bias. Journalists generally understand that they need to work to minimize the impact of bias on their reporting. In a moment we are going to check out a few ways on  “How Journalists Minimize Bias”, which features editors and reporters talking about how bias affects the work they do.

Your task: on the next open page As you watch, make note of journalists’ and editors’ opinions about how bias affects their work and the different strategies they use to counteract bias. Focus groups: * Closest to Promethean board * Closest to projector screen  “How Journalists Minimize Bias”,

Class discussion (2 minutes and we are going to the sticks) How does bias affect Journalists work? What did you hear in the video? What strategies did you find that journalists used to be neutral and fair?

Something to remember As we get in to the details of Ferguson, remember, most people have a tendency to seek evidence that affirms their existing ideas and beliefs and to avoid or ignore information that contradicts them— particularly ideas and beliefs to which they have a strong emotional connection.

Verifying Breaking News… What challenges do breaking news scenes—especially ones as fast moving and chaotic as Ferguson—present to journalists and consumers of information? In this lesson, you will review news accounts about the killing of Michael Brown from the initial days following the shooting to get a sense of the ways that complex stories unfold over time. Understand how journalists show that it is not only extremely challenging for people to sort fact from fiction during a breaking news story, especially one that elicits such strong emotional reactions, it is also challenging—and at times impossible—for journalists to do so. Remember: As we begins to focus on actual accounts from Ferguson, some of the information can be emotionally challenging. Remember what you have been doing so maturely though out this unit.

A little Context Read from pg 2 of lesson 5.

Compare News Accounts: In the previous lesson, you experienced firsthand the challenges of reporting on a situation you were able to witness. In the case of Ferguson, where the news initially broke on Twitter and no journalists were on the scene, the challenges were different. Reporters tried to verify the events surrounding the death of Michael Brown, attempting to gather information from many sources amidst a chaotic, ever-shifting scene covering several square blocks. Today you will analyze several news reports from the days immediately following the shooting to review how the story unfolded.

Materials: Ferguson Investigation packets. These are going to be a crucial part for your next socratic seminar.

Story #1 Johnston Read aloud Questions to guide the reading What surprises you? What emotions are you feeling/ think others might be feeling?

Verification work (8-10 min partner work) In groups, fill out the information for the article that we just read. We will be going over this as a class soon.

You have the remainder of the period to begin reading and working on the remaining articles. We will continue this lesson during the next class.

Explore the Challenges of Verification: Now that you have had a chance to read and compare some of the initial news coverage from Ferguson In this “Verifying the Story” video you will gain a better understanding of the challenges that journalists faced as they tried to confirm details about the shooting and its aftermath.

Verifying the story “Verifying the Story” take notes on the challenges of verifying information and the strategies and methods journalists use to overcome those challenges.

A few follow up questions Why is verification important? How should journalists deal with potentially important details that cannot be verified?Should they simply leave these out of their reporting, or is there another approach? What do you think good sourcing looks like in a news report? What sources were cited in the news reports they read, and which, if any, were missing at this stage of the story’s development? (For example, very little information was available from the police.)  How does verification and good sourcing help to minimize bias? *Several journalists mentioned the tendency of readers to form their opinions early on and to often ignore updates that challenge those opinions. Why do you think this happens, based on what you’ve learned so far, and what can we do to avoid that tendency in ourselves?