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Read the News Well

Four short lessons on reading the news: telling report from opinion, checking who is behind a claim, reading past the headline, and keeping a number in proportion.

Spark & Whetstone · sparkwhetstone.org/learn/read-the-news-well · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Answers are at the end, so you can try each question first.

Lesson 1. Report or opinion?

A news report tells you what happened, who said what, and how the reporter knows. An opinion piece tells you what the writer thinks should be done or believed. Both are useful; they are different jobs.

Clues help. Reports lean on names, dates, quotes and sources. Opinion leans on "should", "must", "clearly" and the writer's own judgement. Many sites label opinion, but the label is easy to miss when a piece is shared.

Before you decide how far to trust something, ask which it is. A strong opinion is not a fact, even when it is well argued.

Question. "The council clearly made the wrong call and must reverse it." This sentence is…

  1. a news report
  2. an opinion
  3. a correction

Say it back. In your own words: how can you tell a report from an opinion piece when there is no label?

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Lesson 2. Who is behind it?

Fact-checkers have a habit worth borrowing: when they meet an unfamiliar source, they leave the page and look it up elsewhere before reading closely. This is called reading laterally.

A site can look professional and still be run by a group with something to sell. A quick search for the organisation's name — what do others say about it? — often tells you more in a minute than ten minutes on its own "About" page.

This is not about distrusting everything. It is about knowing who is speaking, so you can weigh what they say.

Question. You find a convincing article on a site you have never heard of. What is the quickest good check?

  1. Read the article very carefully twice.
  2. Search for the site's name to see what others say about it.
  3. Check whether the site looks professional.

Say it back. Say it back: what does "reading laterally" mean, and why does it beat reading the page closely?

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Lesson 3. Past the headline

Headlines are written to be read in a second and shared in two. They are often written by someone other than the reporter, and they squeeze out the qualifiers.

A headline about a food being "linked to longer lives" can sit above a story that says one study found an association in one group of people, and that the researchers urge caution. The headline is not false, but it is not the whole story.

Before sharing or arguing about a story, read at least the first few paragraphs. That is usually where the who, how many and how sure live.

Question. A headline says "Study shows walking cures back pain." What is the most sensible next step?

  1. Share it — a study backs it up.
  2. Read the story to see what the study actually found.
  3. Assume it is false.

Say it back. In your own words: what tends to go missing from a headline, and where do you find it?

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Lesson 4. Keeping a number in proportion

"Cases doubled" sounds alarming. Doubled from 2 to 4 is very different from 2,000 to 4,000. A change only means something next to the starting number.

The same goes for big totals. A city spending a million on something sounds like a lot; whether it is depends on the whole budget and how many people it serves.

Two useful questions: compared with what? And out of how many? Asking them turns a scary-sounding figure into something you can judge.

Question. A report says complaints about a bus route "rose by 50%". What do you most need to know?

  1. Who wrote the report.
  2. How many complaints there were to begin with.
  3. What colour the buses are.

Say it back. Say it back: what two questions help you keep a news number in proportion?

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At the table: The headline table

Players: 2 or more, any ages. You'll need: A newspaper or a few printed stories.

  1. One person reads only a headline aloud. Everyone guesses what the story will say.
  2. Read the first three paragraphs together. How close were the guesses? What did the headline leave out?
  3. Sort a few stories into "report" and "opinion" piles and say what gave each away.
  4. Pick one number from a story and ask together: compared with what, and out of how many?

Answers

  1. an opinion — It is the writer's judgement: "clearly" and "must" say what ought to happen. A report would say what the council decided and who disagreed.
  2. Search for the site's name to see what others say about it. — Reading laterally — finding what others say about the source — is quicker and more reliable than studying the page itself.
  3. Read the story to see what the study actually found. — Reading on tells you what was found, in whom, and how firmly — details a headline drops.
  4. How many complaints there were to begin with. — A 50% rise from 4 to 6 complaints is very different from 400 to 600. You need the starting figure to judge it.