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When new and noteworthy events occur, such as political elections, epidemics, art exhibitions, or breakthroughs in science or engineering, we call it news. Newsworthy events are written up by journalists and published as newspaper articles in newspapers. The intent of news articles is to keep the general public informed about important current events, and the writing style is simple and clear so readers can easily understand the content. Journalists base their news reports on interviews with eye-witnesses, politicians, officials, experts, etc. as well as their own first-hand experience. And, investigative journalists may go much further than just conducting interviews; they may examine documents, public records, crime reports, etc.
Some facts about newspapers:
Some facts about newspapers:
The first newspapers started in Europe in the 1600s. They grew in popularity and abundance worldwide until the advent of the internet. Since then, they have declined in numbers as more people opt to get news from internet sources. According to the Newspaper Association of America, there are around 1,000 daily newspapers currently published in the United States today. There are also many newspapers that used to exist but have ceased publication.
Most newspapers are published daily and so they are sometimes referred to as dailies. Each daily installment is called an issue or edition. In the United States, there are national dailies, like U.S. News and World Report. There are also metropolitan dailies, like The New York Times and The Washington Post. Metropolitan dailies are based in a city and provide national and international news as well as news local to that city. A few dailies are devoted to business news such as The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times.
QUESTION 1. So that readers can keep current, newspapers come out in daily installments called:
A. statements
B. piglets
C. issues - or editions
D. receipts
(Answer at bottom of page.)Besides delivering current news, what are newspapers used for?
Besides delivering current news, what are newspapers used for?
Newspaper articles are important sources of historical and social information. So, researchers like historians, sociologists, and economists may refer to both recent and old newspaper articles when conducting their research. They might use information derived from newspaper articles to write a book; for example, the authors of the books shown below probably referred to newspaper articles and used them as sources:
Other news sources include radio, TV, magazines, and news websites.
Other news sources include radio, TV, magazines, and news websites.
Ages ago, newspapers were the main source of news for most people. Then, a few magazines like Time and Newsweek started providing readers with news. When radio and TV were invented, news was delivered through those media as well. NPR is a good example of a radio news source, while TV news networks include FOX, NBC, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, etc. When the internet came along, all of these pre-existing print and media sources developed websites so they could share (or sell) their news through the internet as well. In other words, most news sources that began in paper, radio, or TV have retained these formats but have also developed an internet presence – so they now deliver content in two formats.
As more time passed, lots of news websites were "born" on the internet, meaning they didn't start out as print newspapers or as TV/radio stations. These news sources are called born-digital sources, since they never existed in any other form other than as websites. Examples of born-digital news sources include Slate, HuffPost, ProPublica, Politico, The Hill, etc.
To sum it all up, there are lots of different types of news sources and some have a long history (such as newspapers) while others have a short history (such as 'born-digital' news websites).
The spectrum of content found in news sources
The spectrum of content found in news sources
While news sources report on events happening in the world, many contain other types of content as well. For example, most news sources present readers with news analysis as well as opinion pieces. News analysis provides an interpretation of newsworthy events, usually by an expert who weighs in on the meaning, implication, or significance of those events. Opinion pieces offer someone's opinion on a topic. There are several different types of opinion pieces include editorials, commentaries, op-eds, columns by regular or guest columnists, letters to the editor, book reviews, movie reviews, etc.
To give you an example of an opinion piece, to the right you see a guest essay about smart phones that showed up in the 'Opinion' section of The New York Times. (This is the online version of the article shown on an iPad.)
Even though you'll find opinion pieces presented in news sources right along with regular news and news analysis, this content is not news – rather it’s a perspective on a topic, and it usually represents just one person's perspective. Opinion pieces can range from well-reasoned and thoughtful to foolish and distorted – depending on the standards of the news source that is presenting the piece.
News sources may also include content intended to entertain the reader such as crosswords, comics, recipes, celebrity gossip, etc.
And some news sources barely deliver any real news at all, but instead churn out sensationalized 'click-bait' that can range from semi-true news to completely fabricated stories, such as you see in these examples:
QUESTION 2. Opinion pieces, commentaries, editorials, and the writings of columnists represent opinions, not news.
true
false
Bias in news sources
Bias in news sources
You may have heard that all news is biased towards a liberal or conservative perspective. But what is bias, exactly? Bias is prejudice towards someone or something in a way that is unfair or inaccurate. In journalism, bias results in news being unreliable, unbalanced, misleading, or even fabricated. It's mostly political news that's prone to bias, including news that has become politicized, such as news about climate change.
On the other hand, lots of news is not politicized and so is unlikely to be biased, such as:
news reports on the death of a famous poet,
news reports on the discovery of a new species,
or, news reports on census data, such as population statistics.
But why is political news prone to bias? Many people have strong opinions on political topics and want to hear news that portrays their side positively and the other side negatively – even if that news is so biased that it's presenting misinformation or lies. In other words, there's a strong market for 'news' that promotes a single perspective and demonizes opposing perspectives. Where there's a market, there will be news sources to fill it.
Where should you get your news?
Where should you get your news?
As you've learned, some news sources present sensationalized or fabricated 'click-bait' stories, and some present content that is politically biased. It turns out that lots of people are susceptible to believing clickbait, 'fake news,' and biased news. There's quite a bit of research backing this up including this study which found that college students misidentified nearly 40% of news stories as either real or fake:
Leeder, C. (2019). How college students evaluate and share “fake news” stories. Library & Information Science Research, 41(3), 100967
You may be surprised to learn there's plenty of evidence showing that social media is the one of the worst places to get news. Social media tends to disseminate and amplify 'fake news' more so than other sources.
The citation below is for a report conducted by the Pew Research Center. This report offers lots of evidence that social media is a poor news source, yet that report also shows that adults spanning the ages 18 to 29 lean heavily on social media to get their news:
Mitchell, A., et al. (2020). Americans who mainly get their news on social media are less engaged, less knowledgeable. Pew Research Center. https://www.journalism.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/07/PJ_2020.07.30_social-media-news_REPORT.pdf
Meanwhile, the article below examines the behavior of college students and how they view information they've gotten from social media:
Zakharov, W., et al. (2019). Undergraduates' news consumption and perceptions of fake news in science. Libraries and the Academy, 19(4), 653-665.)
The authors of that study found that most students
…believe that everyone has an opinion, no one’s opinion is better than anyone else’s, and no right answer exists. These multiplistic attitudes are reflected, for example, in students weighing evidence from social media or peers at the same level as that from more authoritative sources without questioning whether one source might be more reliable or tracking down confirming evidence.
Yikes! That's a problem!
But don't feel singled out! The problem is not unique to college students – anyone can be taken in by fake news, as this study shows:
Lyons, B. A., et al. (2021). Overconfidence in news judgments is associated with false news susceptibility. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(23).
Take a look at the abstract for that study (to the right) because what the authors found it is really quite chilling.
QUESTION 3. The studies above show that.... (Pick the TWO best answers from the choices below.)
A. In general, people are pretty good at identifying fake news.
B. In general, people are not so good at identifying fake news.
C. In general, people don't bother to keep up with current news.
D. In general, people are not good at identifying what they are not good at.
(Answer at bottom of page.)QUESTION 4. Social media is the quickest, easiest, and most reliable source for news.
true
false
So, where should you go to get reliable, factual, unbiased news? Try searching Google for the keywords: media bias charts. You'll find resources that attempt to rank news sources across various spectra. For example, the Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart ranks news sources on their reliability and factualness across a vertical spectrum. At the top end of the spectrum you'll find news sources that report on facts with a higher reliability. On the bottom end are news sources that tend to contain inaccurate and/or fabricated stories.
The chart also has a horizontal spectrum which ranks news sources according to political bias. The further right or left the news source is on this horizontal spectrum, the more likely it will present news topics that cater to its market audience, and the more likely its news stories will have a political bias.
If you decide to consult charts like this, keep in mind that many of the news sources that rank highly for accuracy and reliability have still made grave errors in reporting over the years. Furthermore, news sources that rank as neutral and unbiased may not always be neutral and unbiased when it comes to political news.
News formats: print, electronic, audio and video
News formats: print, electronic, audio and video
You've already learned that news is available from a variety of sources and in a variety of formats. You've probably seen or heard TV or radio news, and you've probably visited news websites. So, let's use this section to focus on formats for newspapers in particular.
Newspapers are easily recognizable in their physical form (which we refer to as the print form). They are often large, folded, and have a distinctive layout. Plus, they are printed on thin paper called newsprint. You can buy daily issues of newspapers in grocery stores, gas stations, or bookstores – or you can pay to subscribe to a newspaper and have it delivered daily (usually through the mail). Print newspaper issues are also delivered daily to libraries that have a subscription.
The electronic – or online – version of a newspaper is usually presented on a website run by the newspaper's publisher. To find it, simply do a Google search on the title of the newspaper. Typically, the online version of the newspaper will provide links to current articles as well as a search feature to help you look for previously published articles.
The online version of a newspaper usually has the same content as the print version. For example, the image above shows an article from The New York Times in its print form and in its online form. The online version was given a slightly different title, but the text of the two articles is exactly the same.
Because newspaper articles are available online, it's common to discover them in your results when you search Google.
For example, a Google search on coral reefs might result in the link you see to the left that leads to an article about coral reefs published in The New York Times.
How can you tell that this "Beauty and Bleakness" result leads to a newspaper article? Recall that experienced researchers can quickly pick up on certain clues in their Google results that help them identify source types. In this particular case, the result shows that it's coming from the internet address 'www.nytimes.com' and an experienced researcher would immediately know that internet address signifies the online site for The New York Times newspaper. Thus, this result must be an article from that newspaper!
QUESTION 5. Encountering newspaper articles in your Google results means that your Google results lead you to different types of sources - not just websites.
true
false
Locating a specific newspaper article
Locating a specific newspaper article
Suppose someone told you about an interesting article in The Washington Post called "Van Gogh painted rain with an unprecedented intensity." You decide you want to find and read that article. There are a few ways you can go about doing that. You could try a search in Google to see if you can find it – just type the title of the article into a Google search. If you find it, click on it to see if you can open it and read the full article. But suppose you can't find the article or – when you click on it – you encounter a notice telling you that you have to pay to read the article. This is called a paywall.
In that case, go to NAU's Cline Library website and try searching for the article using Quick Search. You can find Quick Search right on the home page of Cline Library's website. After you run your search, look for limits (on the left) to limit your results to newspaper articles, as you to the right.
Can't find a specific newspaper article that you need using Quick Search? Then just request it through Cline Library's Document Delivery Service. You'll learn more about this service on the last page of Lesson 6: Get the sources you've chosen.
Browsing for newspaper articles on a topic
Browsing for newspaper articles on a topic
To browse for newspaper articles on a topic – such as the topic forever chemicals (shown to the right), enter your topic into Cline Library's discovery tool, Quick Search.
Then, once you get results, just follow the same process and look on the left for ways to limit your results to Newspaper Articles as a Material Type.
Distinguishing newspaper articles from other sources
Distinguishing newspaper articles from other sources
Newspaper articles are easy to identify in their print form, since the type of paper used (newsprint) as well as the layout are so distinctive. Also, if you are searching Quick Search, and you filter your results to newspaper articles as a material type, then there won't be any ambiguity that the results you're looking at are newspaper articles.
But when you are searching the internet it can be tricky to tell when you're looking at a online newspaper article. Here are a few things to look for:
Look at the top of the page, above the title of the article, and see if you notice a title that sounds "newspapery." For example, metropolitan dailies usually have their city name in the title followed by words like tribune, post, dispatch, times, herald, sentinel, gazette, standard, chronicle, or simply news.
Look around on the page for navigation to that leads you "newspapery-sounding" sections such as: World news, U.S. News, Politics, Business, Opinion, Obituaries, Sports, etc.
Look for the presence of a search feature as well as links that invite you to subscribe or sign in.
Try looking up the name of the source (located above the article's title) in Wikipedia, to see if that helps you learn what type of source it is.
What's next?
What's next?
Answers to questions on this page:Question 1. CQuestion 2. trueQuestion 3. B and DQuestion 4. falseQuestion 5. true
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