Let's Deconstruct!

Ok, let's apply our techniques to a few examples. The steps for deconstruction are provided at the bottom of the page.

Story 1: Guns on College Campuses? (CNN, 2008)

In two separate attacks in 2007, approximately two hours apart, Seung-Hui Cho, an imbalanced student, killed 32 people and wounded 25 others before committing suicide. At the time, it was the deadliest peacetime shooting incident by a single gunman in US history, on or off a school campus. It has now been dethroned by other mass shootings in recent years.

Virginia tech graduate student Jamal Albarghouti captured video of the deadly shooting on his cell phone, which launches this story about the reaction, which in some places has been to encourage people to carry guns on campus.

campusguns.mp4

After watching this story, evaluate each of the sources:

Then, ask:

What conclusions can you draw from this story?
What else would you need to make a decision, take action or make a judgment?
Are there any dubious production techniques worth noting?
Is this report a good one? Is there much information that you can take away and use?

The Deconstruction Process

Step 1: Summarize the main points of the story

When you read a news article or watch a news video clip, think about what the key facts of the story are. Do the facts support the main narrative of the story? If a news headline says your town is plagued by violent crimes, count how many violent crimes are actually mentioned and referenced in the story.

Step 2: Assess the Evidence

In this step, the reliability of each piece of evidence is evaluated by looking into how it is veriﬁed by the reporter. How much evidence does it have? Is it “direct” or ‘“indirect” evidence?

Step 3: Evaluate the sources

Take note of every person quoted in the story and use IMVAIN to evaluate each one. Sources are the ones who gave information to the journalist. If some sources are anonymous, we should be especially careful. The journalist should:
- - Characterize the source by explaining how this person is informed about the story at hand.
  - Corroborate the source’s information with evidence and quotes from other sources that support what the anonymous source said.
  - Be transparent about why the source’s name is not being used, providing a reasonable motivation, such as “the source feared she would lose her job for talking to the press.”

Step 4: Assess the transparency level of the reporter and the news organization

How honest are the reporter and the news outlet about what is known and what is not known in a story? Look for language such as: “it is too early to tell how many people were injured”; “it was not possible to independently conﬁrm that information”; “the company did not respond to our requests that it comment on these charges.”

Step 5. Look for context

Does the story explain the bigger picture — background information, history, culture, and other things that give an insight into the news event. Context adds depth to the story and provides a better understanding of the issues at large.

Step 6. Are the key questions answered?

A good news story should answer the basic 5Ws and H questions in a news story. What happened? To whom? When? Where? Why? How? If any of these key elements is missing, the journalist should provide an explanation. For example, a story about a murder might say it’s not clear when it took place because the police are still investigating and cannot determine the time. That’s understandable.

Step 7. Is the story fair?

Steps one through six should give you a pretty good idea about the reliability and the credibility of the news story. But before you conclude whether the coverage is fair or not fair, you should check your own predispositions about the story. Consider whether you’re experiencing cognitive dissonance or having conﬁrmation bias when evaluating the news reports.

Lastly, you should always ask "What can I DO with this information? Is it actionable?"

Instructor's Take on Example 1:

Taking a look at this story, it's first important to remember the context in which it was produced. The story was published close to the 1-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting, and uses timeliness as a major driver. That said, this story could probably air in today's era of mass shootings, and still be relevant.

In evaluating the story, we first highlight the topic of whether college students should be allowed to carry firearms on college campuses. (Deconstruction step 1).

Do I think that the story gave enough information for the debate? I'd say no, but it's important to note that as a TV story, it has a big disadvantage when attempting to describe a policy issue. It's handicapped by time. The story is only 1 minute and 42 seconds long, and features 5 different voices.

There's very little evidence presented here on why students should be allowed to carry guns, besides having a student and a professor who are proponents of it, and 2 (unnamed) students and a University police chief that are against it. As a source, I tend to lean heavily on sources that are authoritative or independent. In this case, I would assign those attributes to Chief Ferrara, the police chief, but his comments are a very small part of this story. (Deconstruction steps 2 & 3.)

The story is discussing a policy issue that is still under debate, so balance is needed. In terms of transparency, I would also say that while the story is woefully inadequate on information, it is fairly presented, and includes as many relevant viewpoints as could fit in the short time period. (Steps 4 & 7)

The basic questions are answered here in explaining the issue at hand and there is context given, in that the story is spurred on by the anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting. (Steps 5 & 6)

Overall, this story is a good one for starting a conversation on the issue, but it certainly cannot complete it. Overall, it is moderately reliable, but provides only a negligible amount of information that a viewer can act upon.

<== Unit 3

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