What is News?

PROCESS

MINDWARMER

Step 1:

Ahead of class, ask students to bring in one example of journalism and one example of something that isn’t journalism. Don’t elaborate—the point is for students to think about what makes something journalism and to uncover, as a class, assumptions and ideas about this. Tell students they’re going to have to share their examples in a two-minute presentation, giving at least three factors as to why something is or isn’t journalism.

Step 2:
Have a few volunteers present their examples.

Step 3:
As they talk, write the factors on sticky notes and stick them to either a board or a big piece of paper taped to the wall. Themes should start to emerge. Move the sticky notes into clusters based on these themes as you go.

Step 4:
Lead a conversation about what makes something journalism, and be open about how sometimes it can be hard to tell. Discuss: Was there enough evidence? What about a diversity of sources, quotes, relevance, timeliness? From whose perspective was a story written? Whose perspective is not in the story? What are the biases (obvious or subtle)? What makes you trust a news outlet?

Step 5:
Together, have the class create its own statement of what makes something news and what makes a news outlet trustworthy. Encourage students to think it through on their own, not just rely on what they’ve heard before. Ask students to agree to adhere to this for the semester, and to revisit and revise it if the class’s thinking changes.  As this discussion progresses, you may want to move the sticky notes  around so that, by the end, you have “not journalism” on one side and “journalism” on the other.

EXERCISE

Step 8:
Provide a list of 25 events or have students crowdsource a list of recent events.

• Option A: Create a list of recent news events before class and hand it out to students.
• Option B: Give each student a few minutes to search online for news stories from a variety of hard, soft, and unreliable news sources (Associated Press, United Press International, New York Times, New York Post, Us Weekly, National Enquirer, etc). Have each student select three stories and add them to a shared class Google Doc.

Step 9:
Break into teams of three to four, depending on the size of the class.

Step 10:
Give out the challenge: Imagine you are the director of a nightly news show in Gotham City. You have 20 minutes of time to devote to the news. You must decide which stories to use, in what order to show them, and how long to devote to each story. For the sake of simplicity, note your time allotted in whole minutes (one minute or two minutes, for example). Remember, the total running time for your news show must be 20 minutes.

Step 11:
Give your show a name, and decide an editorial angle: is it hard-hitting news? Feature stories? Investigative journalism? Aimed at young people?

Step 12:
You will have ten minutes to create your show.

Example:

1. Fire on 86th street — one person killed, six people escape. (6 minutes)
2. Actor Chris Pine charged with sexual harassment. (4 minutes)
3. Entire police force in Gotham City just completed a six-month course on race relations. (3 minutes)
4. Paris Designers’ new spring fashions.  Kendall Jenner and others will appear as models. (4 minutes)
5. Michael B. Jordan is appearing at a popular Gotham department store tomorrow. (3 minutes)

Step 13:
The teams read their run of show and have one minute to defend their choices, providing justification and rationale for what they included, excluded, and why they ordered the stories the way they did.

Step 14:
Revisit the class’s working definition of the news. As a class, make any additions or revisions deemed necessary.

Step 15:
As a class, create a list of three to five things to look for as an editor. What makes a story “important?” What make it relevant and meaningful to a particular audience? What do all stories have to contain? This should include things like multiple sources and sources who are not just authority figures, among other aspects.

Step 16:
Discuss: Is there anything actionable for people to do after they’ve seen the “show?” This could range from talking to other people to getting involved with an organization to registering to vote.

Possible Extensions

Look at three different news reporting sources and compare how they listed yesterday’s news.

Sample news sources:

• NPR’s All Things Considered
• CBS Evening News
• The New York Post

Here’s a great resource to find the front page of most daily newspapers in the US: http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

ADDITIONAL CREATIVE CONSTRAINTS

• Assign each team a different news publication and/or target audience
• Assign each team a different news format (E.g., video, radio, written article)

HAVE QUESTIONS? FEEDBACK?

We’d love to hear about your experience using these activities in your classroom, get your thoughts on what we could improve. Email us at resources@journalismdesign.com or fill out this form.