The Sift: News influencers | Fragmented media

The Sift

An educator's guide to
the week in news literacy

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News influencers | Fragmented media | RumorGuard slides | Daily Do Now slides

Daily Do Now slides

Don't miss this week's classroom-ready resource.

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Top picks

{{Salutation or 'Educators'}}, here are the latest news literacy topics and tips to integrate them into your classroom.

An illustration of a newspaper behind a golden lock.
News organizations need funds to operate, but paywalls can make vital information less accessible.

1. Should news sites have paywalls?

Credible information is vital to countering misinformation, but paywalls on standards-based news websites can prevent readers from accessing it. About 30% to 40% of U.S. news sites use paywalls, according to misinformation expert Claire Wardle, a professor at Cornell University. Wardle said in an interview that paywalls are a barrier to the dissemination of quality journalism at a time when the information landscape has changed — including with the rise of low-quality, freely available, AI-generated “pink slime” sites. The growing popularity of social media platforms and podcasts as sources of information in the past decade, as well as the decline of ad revenue, has also affected news organizations.

CNN and Reuters — for-profit news organizations — are among the news outlets that have recently added paywalls to their sites. While news organizations need funding to operate and many — especially local newsrooms — are struggling to survive financially, Wardle suggested making news about political and social issues free. Some news outlets have hard paywalls that require readers to subscribe to access information, but others have soft paywalls that allow readers to access a certain number of articles for free before they’re asked to pay.

Note:

Wardle has volunteered her time in support of the News Literacy Project, including by serving as the host of the Misinformation lesson on NLP’s Checkology® virtual classroom.

Discuss:

Do you ever encounter news paywalls? Where do you turn for information if you encounter a paywall? How could news paywalls indirectly cause false and misleading information to spread? What might some costs and consequences be for communities that lack credible local news sources? Why do newsrooms need revenue to operate?

Related:

★ NLP Resources:

 
POLL

Should news sites have paywalls?

2. News media has become more fragmented

The way people tuned into election news this year is growing more fragmented compared with the 2016 election, back when most Americans followed major news networks and publishers. Some online creators are seeing the same viewership numbers as major news outlets — like TikTok news influencer Dylan Page, whose video calling the presidential election results had over 6 million views, about the same as MSNBC’s average live broadcast numbers on Election Day. A new Pew Research Center study found that about 1 in 5 U.S. adults say they regularly get news from news influencers on social media. Americans also turned to podcasts, X, Instagram, Twitch and Facebook for election news.

Discuss:

Think back to election night. How did you get news and updates? How do you determine whether a news source is credible? Should news influencers aspire to the same standards as professional journalists, such as fairness, accuracy and the use of multiple credible sources?

Related:

★ NLP Resource:

A boy wearing a newsie cap holds a newspaper that says “EXTRA!”

“What Is News?” (Checkology virtual classroom).

3. Want to be an influencer? There’s a degree for that

Influencers have become a major source of news for young people — and a popular career aspiration among Gen Z. A university in Ireland is responding to this high interest by offering a degree in content creation and social media, with courses on video storytelling, data analytics and celebrity studies.

Many young people view influencers as trusted information sources, especially compared with journalists. About 8 in 10 teens say that news organizations produce information that is either more biased than or about the same as content creators online, according to a recent NLP survey.

Discuss:

What ethical responsibilities do journalists and influencers have when they share information? How are they alike? How are they different? What are some signs of credibility for online sources?

Idea:

Have students use this short-form video script template to create their own script to share information about a current event. Ask students to keep accuracy and the “Seven standards of quality journalism” in mind as they work on their scripts.

  • Another idea: Use the “Reflect” slide in Week 9 of the Daily Do Now resource to further explore this topic.
Note:

For more teaching tips and ideas on this topic, check out NLP’s recent edWebinar “Teach With TikTok: Help Students Stick to the Facts on Social Media.”

Related:

★ NLP Resources:

A thumbnail illustration of people walking through different zones of information, represented by icons of digital devices and posts.

“InfoZones” (Checkology virtual classroom).

RumorGuard Rundown

★ Featured classroom resource:
RumorGuard slide deck:

A collage of Google slides from The Sift newsletter of RumorGuard examples on Nov. 18, 2024. The slides include an example of a rumor, beginning with the claim, evidence, sources and key terms.

{{Salutation or 'Educators'}}, these classroom-ready slide decks provide a comprehensive walk-through on how to debunk false rumors.

View on Google Slides

No, Musk’s Starlink wasn’t used to alter vote tallies

A social media post reads, “Reporting is that Starlink was used to upload votes in SWING STATES. HMMMM Trump won every single swing state. Coincidence?” and features an image of President-elect Donald Trump and the words “THIS IS NOT MY PRESIDENT.” The News Literacy Project has added a label that says “FALSE.”

NO: Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites were not used to manipulate or change votes in swing states during the 2024 presidential election.

YES: Georgia, Pennsylvania and other swing states don’t allow voting equipment to be connected to the internet during ballot counting.

YES: Federal officials say they have no evidence of any vote tampering in the election.

★ NewsLit takeaway

People can be vulnerable to conspiracy theories when they are confronted with a reality they do not want to accept. Some opponents of President-elect Donald Trump found it difficult to believe that he legitimately won the election and searched online for alternative explanations, finding conspiracies that fit their beliefs. 

Here are a few tips to avoid this kind of thinking and stay grounded when news breaks:

Recognize that memes are not news. Social media posts do not go through the same vetting process as reports from standards-based news outlets. 

Search for trusted sources. Credible claims of election fraud would draw attention from local officials, federal government agencies and news outlets, and would not appear only on social media.

Pause and consider. Content that aligns with preconceived beliefs can easily slip by unscrutinized, so be sure to double-check the origin of a claim before sharing it.

Kickers (Journalism slang). Definition: The ending of a story or news report, often intended to leave a lasting impression.
bullet Feeling the need for a news reset? This journalist says she’s taking a few steps to change the ways she reads the news, including by resubscribing to print newspapers to seek out coverage herself rather than read other peoples’ reaction to news on social media.
bullet The social media app Bluesky has seen a surge in growth, doubling to over 15 million users as many X users fled the Elon Musk-owned platform in search of an alternative after the election.
bullet A small but vocal online group of Vice President Kamala Harris supporters have turned to baseless conspiracy theories about the election being stolen or hacked.
bullet Public health experts are voicing concerns after anti-vaccination activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. One epidemiologist said sowing doubt about vaccines could impact “Americans' ability to make evidence-based decisions.”
bullet The famous voice of British naturalist Sir David Attenborough is one of the latest targets of artificial intelligence cloning, with Attenborough telling the BBC he was “profoundly disturbed” by the AI voice imitation.
bullet A teen reporter. A parent activist. An internet expert. Each expressed sharply different views to The Associated Press about a closely watched plan proposed by the Australian government to ban social media platforms for children under 16.
bullet The satirical website The Onion bought Alex Jones’ Infowars in a bankruptcy auction and said it plans to relaunch the site — which frequently pushed harmful conspiracy theories — as a parody of conspiracy theorists. (And nope, this isn’t satire.)
 
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Thanks for reading!

Your weekly issue of The Sift is created by Susan Minichiello (@susanmini.bsky.social), Dan Evon (@danieljevon), Peter Adams (@peteradams.bsky.social), Hannah Covington (@hannahcov.bsky.social) and Pamela Brunskill (@PamelaBrunskill). It is edited by Mary Kane (@mk6325.bsky.social) and Lourdes Venard (@lourdesvenard.bsky.social).

You’ll find teachable moments from our previous issues in the archives. Send your suggestions and success stories to [email protected].

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Checkology virtual classroom

Check out NLP's Checkology virtual classroom, where students learn how to navigate today’s information landscape by developing news literacy skills.