Principles of Media Literacy

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Some Principles of Media Literacy

By David Considine*

In England, Australia, Canada and the U.S. media literacy educators have fairly common agreement on a set of principles that are explored as part of media literacy. These include the following concepts:

1. Media are Constructions
The old adage “the camera never lies” is indicative of the way we have been conditioned to accept the relationship between reality and the representations of reality that the media construct. In a day of virtual reality and computer simulations, seeing is not believing. All media are carefully assembled, edited, selected and designed constructions. They show us a world but is a selected and often unrepresentative view even though it seems to be true. Learning to distinguish the reality from the reflection is implicit in this concept.

2. Media Representations Construct Reality
This principle involves the realization that there is a relationship between the way the world is presented by the media and the way we as media consumers perceive that world. Crime is 10 times greater on television than in real life, but many Americans perceive their world to be as violent and threatening as the media construction. When we have had no direct or immediate experience of the individual, institution, issue, person or place represented, the media tend to mediate. Hence, unless we have been to Australia, for example, we might perceive it as an odd mixture of Crocodile Dundee meets the Thornbirds. For today’s students, born and raised in the post-Vietnam era, their knowledge of that war is likely to have been constructed by China Beach, Tour of Duty, Rambo, Platoon and other media constructions.

3. Audiences Negotiate Their Own Meaning
Put simply, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. While we may often argue about the “beauty” of the media, the old adage helps us conceptualize the audiences are not passive recipients of media messages. Rather we filter media content and messages through a complex nexus of our own nature and needs including our existing beliefs and value systems. Significantly, different ethnic groups exposed to the same media content, select, reject, recall and comprehend quite different components of the same content. Exploring the different perceptions and perspectives students have about programs offers an important opportunity for young people to understand the differences and commonalties between them. In a day of virtual reality and computer simulations, seeing is NOT believing.

4. Media Constructions Have Commercial Purposes
Put bluntly, the bottom line is the buck. Any real understanding of media content cannot be divorced from the economic context and financial imperative that drives the media industry. While many people lament the rise of tabloidism and “infotainment,” the media industry justifies such trends on the basis that these stories sell. Hence, they are simply giving the public what the public wants.

The same is true in the entertainment media. While opinion surveys frequently show Americans are concerned about media violence, ticket sales and ratings also indicate that programs with high levels of violence also attract audiences. Breaking this cycle clearly involves under-
standing the dynamics of the market place and a realization that as consumers of media messages we are both part of the problem and part of the solution.

5. Media Messages Contain Values and Ideologies
Even though we are conditioned to think of movies, television programs and other media as separate and discrete products, ideologically they consistently construct, contain, carry and convey certain basic beliefs and values. In literature we might for example move beyond the plot or narrative chain of events and look at the theme or message. Hence Dorothy learns, “There’s no place like home” in The Wizard of Oz. When we stop seeing media products as discrete self-contained programs and look at the consistent and recurring themes that pervade the media we begin to recognize the cumulative value system at work. Hence in American media we might discover messages that suggest that consumption is inherently good and that violence is a viable solution and response to problems we face. Leading educator Theodore Sizer has noted that: “Television has become the biggest school system, the principal shaper of culture . . . powerfully influencing the young on what it is to be American.” Understanding what television and other media teach is central to this component of media literacy.

6. Media Messages Have Social & Political Consequences
This principle explores the relationship between image and influence, content and consequence. In an era of consumption and materialism for example, how do we raise children to have spiritual values? In an age of AIDS, what happens if the messages about sex provided by the church, school and the family are undermined and contradicted by media messages that promise instant gratification or indulgence without consequences? What is the relationship between the backlash against affirmative action and social and media stereotypes for example about immigrants and welfare mothers? The principle involves exploring the way the media show and shape, reflect and reinforce reality. It involves understanding who and what is portrayed both quantitatively and qualitatively, as well as which groups and individuals in our society are left out of the picture. In part it involves understanding who is portrayed by whom, how and why with what effect.

7. Each Medium Has a Unique Aesthetic Form
When Steven Speilberg decided to shoot Schindler’s List in black and white, he acknowledged the relationship between media content and media form. Since the world had initially learned of the Nazi death camps through black and white photographs and news reel documentaries, Spielberg utilized a format that recreated the time and era. This principle of media literacy enables us to understand the unique characteristics and attributes of each medium and to explore that way that form is related to content. It enables us to conceptualize not just what we are told, but how. The Vietnam War has been described as the “living room war” because it came to us via television. In what way might our perception of the war have been different if we had merely read about the death count and body bags and not accurately seen it?

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* David Considine is coordinator of Media Studies in the graduate program in Media Production, Department of Curriculum Instruction at Appalachian State University ( considinedm@appstate.edu). He is the principal author of Visual Messages: Integrating Imagery into Instruction, Second Ed.

Quotes on the Media

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Selected Quotes on the Effects of Mass Media

From E.B. White (“Removal,” One Man’s Meat, New York: Harper & Row, 1938)

“Television will enormously enlarge the eye’s range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the distant and the remote. More hours in every 24 will be spent digesting ideas, sounds, images—distant and concocted. In sufficient accumulation, radio sounds and television sights may become more familiar to us than their originals.”

“When I was a child, people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist-deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.”

“...I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.”


From Bill McKibben (The Age of Missing Information, New York: Plume, 1993)

“TV was like a third parent—a source of ideas and information and impressions. And not such a bad parent—always with time to spare, always eager to please, often funny. TV filled dull hours and it made me a cosmopolite at an early age.”

“People who didn’t grow up with television tend not to understand its real power—they already had a real world to compare with the pictures on the screen. People my age didn’t—we were steeped in television, flavored for life.”

“TV is a pipeline to the modern world, and a convenient shorthand for some of its features. Still, that does not mean that TV merely reflects our society. By virtue of its omnipotence, it also constantly reinforces certain ideas.”

“Television is the chief way that most of us partake of the larger world, of the information age, and so, though none of us owes our personalities and habits entirely to the tube and the world it shows, none of us completely escapes its influence either.”

“I don’t fret about TV because it’s decadent or shortens your attention span or leads to murder. It worries me because it alters perception. TV, and the culture it anchors, masks and drowns out the subtle and vital information contact with the real world once provided.”


From Newton Minow, FCC Chairman, to the National Association of Broadcasters, May 9, 1961

“Sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you—and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland....

“Is there one person in this room who claims that broadcasting can’t do better? ... Your trust accounting with your beneficiaries is overdue.”

Thirty years later, in 1991, Minow revisited that statement:

“In the last 30 years, the television marketplace has become a severely distorting influence in at least four important public areas. We have failed 1) to use television for education; 2) to use television for children; 3) to finance public television properly; and 4) to use television properly in political campaigns.”

“...The most important educational institution in America is television. More people learn more each day, each year, each lifetime from television than from any other source. All of television is education; the question is, what are we teaching and what are we learning?”

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“In large part, commercial television has abdicated its educational responsibility and concentrated on its ability to amuse. . . . Broadcasters complain that they cannot figure it out: ‘What is an educational show?’ If they don’t know, they should be in the shoe business, not in show business.”

—Peggy Charren, founder, Action for Children’s Television, 1994.

“This business of giving people what they want is a dope pusher’s argument. News is something people don’t know they’re interested in until they hear about it. The job of the journalist is to take what’s important and make it interesting.”

—Reuven Frank, former president, NBC News

“Television-watching Americans — that is, just about all Americans — see approximately 100 TV commercials a day. ... Advertising now infects just about every organ of society, and wherever advertising gains a foothold it tends to slowly take over, like a vampire or a virus.”

—Leslie Savan, author, The Sponsored Life, 1994.

“It’s just hard not to listen to TV—it’s spent so much more time raising us than you have.”

—Bart Simpson, cartoon philosopher-king, 1998

“Televsion is like a flyer somebody sticks on your windshield. Who gives a damn what’s on it? It’s iridescent wallpaper. Sometimes I think people just like the light on their faces.”

—Jerry Seinfeld, TV comedian, 1998

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Have more? Add them under “Comments” below!

Media Smarts—Media Literacy Lecture

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Media Smarts: Media Literacy
How do we know what (we think) we know?

The Lecture Outline:
1. Review Intro chapter
2. Critical Thinking Skills
3. What Is Media Literacy?
(Video: “Rich Media, Poor Democracy” video (part 1) → Concentration of Media Ownership)

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Making Sense of the Information Age
Key Concepts

Agriculture Age → Industrial Age → Information Age
subsistence culture → mechanization/standardization → knowledge as “coin of the realm”
oral tradition → mass communication (Gutenberg, printing) → global homogenization

Gemeinschaft → Gesellschaft

Gemeinschaft—personal relationships, one-on-one communication; family unit
Gesellschaft—mass society, large community; mediated communication
(See illustration)

Transition from reading literacy to media literacy, and from real-world experience to received, mediated “reality” and knowledge.

What changed in the Information Age? The world got bigger, richer, wider, but we also lost our minds: ability to remember, the oral tradition, the first-person, verifiable experience.

→E.B. White (“Removal,” One Man’s Meat, New York: Harper & Row, 1938)

“Television will enormously enlarge the eye’s range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the distant and the remote. More hours in every 24 will be spent digesting ideas, sounds, images—distant and concocted. In sufficient accumulation, radio sounds and television sights may become more familiar to us than their originals.”
“When I was a child, people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist-deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.”
“...I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.”

(See also: Media Quotes—Bill McKibben, Bart Simpson, Newton Minow, etc.)

1964: Marshall McLuhan’s Vision

• Information Age—knowledge is more valuable than things.
• “mediated” communication—what does that mean?
• The Global Village
• McLuhan’s Fish: I’m not sure who first discovered water, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a fish.

The advent of the Global Village, as it was shrunken and homogenized by instantaneous communication (radio, TV, satellite, movies and, eventually, Internet…) had a number of results.
McLuhan hypothesized (optimistically) that the global village would result in better understanding of one another, better sharing of knowledge, etc. The world would become “smaller” because we would understand each other better and share more common goals and values. (HA!)

Others saw mass communication as a development tool for poor nations, a way to educate themselves, and as a means of easing “that terrible ascent to modernity” (Schramm).

BUT:

→When TV changed Fiji. . . .
→Arthur C. Clark found “I Love Lucy” on TV in a hut in Sri Lanka . . .
→Queen Elizabeth’s favorite TV show was once purported to be “Kojak”. . .
→The most popular TV show worldwide? “Baywatch” That’s how the world “knows” us.
→My little French amie……. Chicago and tommy guns.

Media literacy: an essential tool
in the Information Age.

That begins with CRITICAL THINKING—even skepticism—about what’s in our mass media diets. So . . .

QUESTION AUTHORITY! Question what we’re told

But the “authority” in the mass media age is TV, the Internet—not what we know from our own experience, but what other people—people we don’t even know—tell us is “truth.”

But what IS “Truth”?.........“TRUTHINESS”?……….

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (AP)—A panel of linguists has decided the word that best reflects 2005 is “truthiness,” defined as the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.

Michael Adams, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in lexicology, said “truthiness” means “truthy, not facty.”

“The national argument right now is, one, who’s got the truth and, two, who’s got the facts,” he said. “Until we can manage to get the two of them back together again, we’re not going make much progress.” (1/5/06.)

“Truthiness” was coined by Comedy Central truthmeister Stephen Colbert in October 2005. (See video clip here.)

So how reliable are the mass media with which we spend such large parts of our lives? These are the “authorities,” but how authoritative, how reliable, how “truthy” (or how “facty”) are they?

In response to everything you’re told (even by me) or hear/see on TV or on the Internet, the media-smart response should be, “Oh really…?” And ask for proof.

4 components of the Critical Thinking Process

1. Question your own assumptions, or the assumptions on which media messages seem to be based.

• What do you assume that you already “know”? Examine your assumptions, as well as those of the people on TV.
• What do you really know about this topic?
• How do I know it?
• Who told me that?
• How do they know? Is that really true and accurate (or fair and balanced)?

And when asking these same questions of media messages—TV news or ads or sitcoms—do I really think like/value the things that these messages seem to assume I do? (Later, we’ll talk about selective perception, and how that works in the mass mediated age)

2. Crank up your Bias-Detector. Be aware both of your own biases/ prejudices/preferences, and also try to be aware of the perspectives/biases that might lie behind the sources of media messages.

Be very wary of media messages, esp. TV and Internet—which seem to offer information as “authoritative.” It’s not a bad thing, necessarily, that information is biased, as long as you are aware of what the biases are and thus can take the “authoritative” information with a grain of salt.

Try to analyze the messages and who’s producing them—why do they think the way they do? What sources of information are being used, and what are the sources’ biases? (Does FOX News = “fair & balanced”?) What is the focus of the “authoritative” message, and what info/perspectives may be left out? Why? Try to figure out the message sender’s objectives…

3. Analyze the Context of the Message. What factors may be influencing the message? Political, cultural, ideological, religious… Who’s telling the story? What axes do they have to grind? Why? (hysteria, lack of reliability surrounding disasters, breaking news, etc. )

4. Don’t Settle! Seek more information on your own, to confirm or refute or modify what you’re told by one source, and what you think you know. Alternative (and truly authoritative/dispassionate) sources of information. “If you mother tells you she loves you, get a second source.” Comparison shop. Be open-minded

(For more reading, see this link to Critical Thinking skills)

7 principles of Media Literacy

1. Media Messages Are (re)Constructions. Every media message, in every form, is carefully selected, filtered, edited, targeted and constructed. Remember that we’re talking about mediated communication, which means there’s always some “middleman” between the reality and you, the reader/viewer/listener. Whether the mediator means to or not, the original reality of the event is always skewed in some way, selected, edited, framed in some way. So, seeing is not necessarily believing. It is essential for the critical consumer of media messages to remember to ask:

WHO says
WHAT
to WHOM
via WHAT CHANNEL
with WHAT INTENT
and with WHAT EFFECT?

(See Mass Comm Theories: Selective Exposure/Perception; Gatekeeping)

2. Media Representations Construct New “Realities.” There is a relationship between how messages are constructed by the mass media, and how we as consumers of media messages perceive the world.

The famous 1950s Walter Cronkite TV program, YOU ARE THERE, meant well, but viewers weren’t there. No matter how diligent reporters may try to be in their reporting (in France, new reports are called, in fact, “réalités”), they necessarily skew reality, either a lot or a little.

For example: The “Mean World Syndrome”—Crime occurs 10 times more frequently on TV than in the real world, resulting in many people thinking the world is a much more dangerous place than it really is. So what we know and how we “see” the world in the information age depends heavily on others’ interpretations. (See Mass Communication Theories: Cultivation/Framing/Coorientation)

3. Audiences Create Their Own Realities. Readers/listeners/viewers aren’t just passive, mindless sponges for media messages, of course. Everyone filters and interprets input (media, personal, whatever) through his or her own unique and complex web of perspectives of the world.

(See Selective Exposure/Perception/Attention-Retention; Coorientation)

(Draw Venn Diagram here)

4. Media Constructions Are Intentional: They Have Purposes: economic, commercial, ideological, political, social . . . Even if the message’s goal is not financial (as in advertising), ALL messages are framed from particular perspectives and have some kind of objective. Popular TV shows have both economic objectives and cultural/social/perhaps ideological content
(“infotainment” is justified by some media producers because that’s what they say audiences want—so infotainment is justified by alleged market demand, and that’s what sells (economics)….; on local TV news, “if it bleeds, it leads” is a phenomenon explained by two rationales:

1) people do want to gawk at car crashes and fires (infotainment);
2) it is cheap and easy to shoot a mangled SUV or a fire, neither of which needs a lot of intelligence/analysis to report…..)

Another example: The public says it hates the amount of sex and violence on TV and in the movies, but that’s what sells (and translates easily to international markets).

BUT!

Reuven Frank, former president of NBC News, disputes this claim as too easy:
“This business of giving people what they want is a dope pusher’s argument. News is something people don’t know they’re interested in until they hear about it. The job of the journalist is to take what’s important and make it interesting.”

(See Mass Comm Theories: Agenda-setting; gatekeeping)

5. Media Messages Are Vehicles for Values and Ideologies: Americans spend more time with media than in any other single pastime. What are the values and standards and societal norms—the expectations and models of behavior—embedded in mass media content? Is there a set of standards across all media? Are there recurring themes (macho, gender, violence, consumerism, wealth….)?
(See Mass Comm Theories: Agenda-setting; Cultivation)

6. Media Messages Have Social and Political Consequences: Who/What is portrayed (and who isn’t?) in media messages, and How are they portrayed? And how are issues framed in terms of outcomes and consequences—answers to journalism’s “So What?” question?

(Heavy Viewers v. Light/Moderate Viewers drawing here)

Policy/Political/Market Implications?
(prisons; affirmative action; mean-world syndrome; prisons; racial/gender opportunity….)

7. Each Medium Has Its Own Unique Aesthetic Characteristics/Strengths:

Text v. Image
Still v. Motion
B/W v. Color
TV v. Movies v. Theater

• “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan” in B/W recreated feeling newsreels and historical era
• Vietnam was the “living room war” (seeing was believing)
• Iraq 1 (Desert Storm)—a video game war; Iraq 2—Embedded journalists=“You are there,” but impact on reporting?

(See also these links to 1) media literacy; 2) key concepts of media literacy; and 3) some principles of media literacy)

More to follow.......

Writing News—A Primer

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Writing News: a quick primer

(adapted from the MIT News office, 2006)

What are the basics of any simple news story?
• The lead (What’s the news? Apply the Fred Rule)
• Who? what? where? when? (why?) and (how?)
• Write for a reader who’s intelligent but unfamiliar with your topic
• Use the “inverted pyramid” structure
• Use direct quotations (but sparingly)
• Keep it clear and simple
• Be objective (not biased)
• Check your facts
• Keep it short

The lead
Every news story starts with a lead paragraph—the first sentence that summarizes the most interesting news. The lead should be brief, focused and factual, giving the reader an instant sense of what the article is about and making him or her want to read more. The lead paragraph should be a declarative sentence of about 30-35 words. If your lead is longer than that, you haven’t figured out what’s the most important news. Apply the Fred Rule—You see your friend Fred on campus. He asks, “What’s new?” You don’t say, “Well, I started the day when the alarm went off at 7. Actually, I hit the snooze and didn’t get up until….” No. You say, “Professor Pease’s pants fell down in class….”

Who? What? Where? When? Why? And how?
News stories always include the most basic, essential information – who did what, where, when? The why and how questions may be equally important, but sometimes are implied in the story, rather than overtly stated.
• WHO is involved? The mayor? A USU student? A businessman? A speaker? A group?
• WHAT about him/her/them? The mayor announced…. A USU student ate 75 hotdogs? A Logan businessman has donated…. Arts & lectures speaker Congressman Bob Smith told students the military draft should be revived…. (NOT Congressman Bob Smith spoke…). The USU Campus Republicans held a food drive….
• WHERE is the news or event taking place? If the place is important, include it in the first paragraph; sometimes the Where? can go lower in the story. Ex: Standing on the Utah Capitol steps, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman announced…. But not: Sitting in his office, USU President Stan Albrecht said….
• WHEN did (or will) the news take place? This is easy to insert, and important: The mayor announced Monday…. After six false starts, space shuttle Atlantis blasted off Friday….
• WHY is the story newsworthy? This may be obvious: “A U.S. congressman said Tuesday the military draft should be reinstated….” “Logan police captured a suspect after a high-speed chase…” Other stories may include information that explains the significance of the news: “Thousands gathered Monday to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers….” or “Hundreds of poor families in Cache Valley stand to benefit from a new nutrition program outlined Monday….” Readers need to know why they should care, who will be affected by this news and how?
• HOW also may be implied or obvious: “Five people died in a three-car crash on Main Street Thursday….” or “Fire swept through a 15-unit apartment building Wednesday after lightning struck the roof….”

Write for a reader who’s intelligent but unfamiliar with your topic
Don’t assume in-depth knowledge. Avoid highly specialized or technical language/terms/jargon/slang. If you must use technical terms, or if a source uses them in a quote, explain what they mean for the non-expert.

Use the inverted pyramid structure
Rank-order the information in your story from the most important to the least important. Start with a summary and then add specifics. Chronology is usually not a good way to get the most important information across most efficiently. Apply the Fred Rule—What happened?!?! And then answer the obvious questions raised in the previous paragraphs.

Example
Lead: A fire on 200 North in Logan Tuesday night left four people injured, two seriously, and five families homeless.


2nd graf (answers lead questions): Logan fire officials said the fire at the Oak Stream Apartments complex at 315 W. 220 North apparently started in a vacant unit that was being renovated and spread rapidly through seven apartments.


3rd graf: Residents Jennifer Wilson, 23, and Bob Forsyth, 24, were injured when they tried to rescue their elderly neighbors, Mary and Maurice Anderson, fire Lt. Steve Jeppson said.


4th graf: The Andersons, both in the late 70s, were transported….

When used correctly, the inverted pyramid structure reflects the reporter’s understanding of what the reader wants to know, and gives it to him/her in small, logical, easily digestible bites.

Inexperienced reporters often make the mistake of telling the story chronologically. A chronological structure is less effective in communicating essential information, especially to readers who are pressed for time. (Research shows that most readers quit a story after the first few paragraphs, so if the news that Rocky Mountain Power will shut off electricity to wide areas of town doesn’t appear until lower in the story, many readers might not know until their lights go out.)

Example:
Lead: Rocky Mountain Power Co. officials held a press conference at the company’s downtown offices Thursday.

2nd graf: The meeting was conducted by public information officer John Sparky, joined by company executives Clarence Kilowatt, Jeanine Juice and Oliver Overcharge.

3rd graf: Sparky called the meeting to order at 11:15 a.m. There were about 15 people in attendance, including both Rocky Mountain Power customers and members of the press, representing the Logan Herald-Journal, the Utah Statesman, KVNU-AM and…..

Reader: “ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz….”

Use direct quotations (when they add to the story)
A good direct quote is a jewel. A poor direct quote can be mushy, dense, unclear. Quotes come to the reader in the voice of the newsmaker; when the source speaks in clear, colorful, evocative language that is concise and to the point, the direct quote is the most efficient and accurate way to get the news across. When the source talks like a tax form, the reporter must step in and paraphrase (translate) the information for the reader.

Usually, a reporter can paraphrase information more efficiently than it is spoken by a source. But when you get a good quote, get out of its way and let the source do the talking. What’s a good quote? You know it when you see it:

Example: Which version of this information do you think tells the story best?

Coach: “Our guys are coming on strong. If we don’t stomp ‘em by three touchdowns, I’ll do extra laps myself.”

or...

Coach Johnson expressed confidence in his team, which he said has had strong practices this week. He predicted an easy win.

Keep it clear and simple
• Write in short, simple, declarative sentences.
• Avoid using clichés, such as “cutting-edge” or "major breakthrough," by focusing on what is unique about your topic.
• Avoid jargon words that are understood only by experts in your business or academic field.
• Don’t use a long word when a short one will do. It doesn’t make the article look any “smarter” and only confuses the reader.
• When you have to introduce an unfamiliar term or idea, use smaller words, concrete examples and even similes to clarify ("fibrillation is where the heart quivers instead of pumping rhythmically, like a fist opening and closing.")
• Use the active voice (“the president announced,” rather than “it was announced by the president”).

Just the facts, m’am
News stories are factual. They are not opinion pieces. Reporters inevitably impose their perspectives on the news through the angles they take, the people they interview, the facts they include and omit. But even though these are personal (and professional) judgments, reporters must strive to make these decisions as neutral as possible. Sources may express opinions and judgments, but the reporter never should let her/his perspectives come through in the copy. Let the facts tell the story. Let readers interpret the facts themselves.

Check, confirm, double-check
Check all facts: names, spelling, addresses, ages, titles, company names, events. If you’re even a little bit uncertain, call sources back to make sure you’ve got it right. If you’re fuzzy on the facts, it’s impossible to write a story that will be clear and accurate for the reader.

Reread, edit, read aloud, edit
News stories are written on deadline, but if you have the chance, try to read your story out loud to yourself. Remember that writing/reading is an aural exercise: Readers “hear” the words and the cadence and the rhythm of the language. If you stumble over a sentence or syntax when you read your stuff aloud, so will your reader, and you might lose her/him. So fix the sentence.