GSAN: Gen Z news fandom | Fake sunburn competition

Top reads

A roundup of the latest topics in news literacy and misinformation.

“Kansas Newspaper Is Talk of Town, and Not Just for Getting Raided” (Kevin Draper, The New York Times).
“Teens much more likely to believe online conspiracy claims than adults — US study” (Kari Paul, The Guardian).
“The fandomization of news” (Kate Lindsay, The Verge).
Podcast: “The dangers of AI in the 2024 elections” (Lily Jamali, Marketplace Tech).
“AP, other news organizations develop standards for use of artificial intelligence in newsrooms” (David Bauder, The Associated Press).
“YouTube will remove cancer treatment misinformation” (Ashley Capoot, CNBC).
“Canadian media trained audiences to use Facebook. With Meta blocking news, what's next?” (Rebecca Zandbergen, CBC News).
Opinion: “What if You Knew What You Were Missing on Social Media?” (Julia Angwin, The New York Times).
“What’s at stake as two Republicans in Congress push resolution on how media cover shootings” (Angele Latham, The Tennessean).
“ChatGPT leans liberal, research shows” (Gerrit De Vynck, The Washington Post).
Are libraries the future of news? (Kate Harloe, Nieman Lab).

Featured video

False claims and AI-generated images of a sunburn competition recently circulated online. Learn how to avoid getting burned by misinformation in this NLP TikTok video:

A still of a TikTok video features AI-generated images of sunburned people outdoors and a label by the News Literacy Project that reads “Extreme sunburn competition?”

Editorial independence is crucial.
Quality newsrooms have strict policies in place to protect their reporting from undue influences, including from advertisers and owners. In fact, many newsrooms even physically separate the advertising and news departments to reinforce the “firewall” between news decisions from business interests.

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Conspiracy theories about laser beams from outer space and a preplanned disaster resurfaced after the Hawaii wildfires. Climate change denialists pushed a doctored video of a TV weather map as “evidence” that meteorologists are exaggerating their forecasts. Check out more of the latest debunked rumors on NLP’s RumorGuard!

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Your weekly issue of Get Smart About News is created by Susan Minichiello (@susanmini), Dan Evon (@danieljevon), Peter Adams (@PeterD_Adams), Hannah Covington (@HannahCov) and Pamela Brunskill (@PamelaBrunskill). It is edited by Mary Kane (@marykkane) and Lourdes Venard (@lourdesvenard).

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