Overload by Bob Schieffer

Like many other school librarians, we have lately been curating materials and lesson plans related to fake news and civil discourse. 
   

OVERLOAD by Bob Schieffer (former host of CBS’s Face the Nation) offers an important perspective from a well-respected journalist.  Schieffer and his co-author, H. Andrew Schwartz, explore “Finding the Truth in Today's Deluge of News.”  They note the frequently cited statistic from Pew Research Center that 62% of American adults now get some news on social media.  As one would expect, we have found that percentage to be even higher for our teenage students. OVERLOAD provides a nice bridge between generations; for example, introducing the reader to journalist at Mic (online site targeted at millennials), who say that “our phones are the only device that matters.  And our phones went from being sort of social network connected devices for reading articles now to … hyper-personalized TVs.” They also cite the Buzzfeed study about how the top twenty false news stories of the election cycle had more likes, shares and clicks on social media than the top real news stories. While interspersing contributions from others like Walt Mossberg and Stephen Colbert, Schieffer notes “what we really need to do and what we are doing is rethinking the storytelling process in an environment where the web is its own medium and, in fact, mobile may be its own medium, too.” Some reviewers considered his conclusions too obvious, but I think we do need a common language, better understanding of the range of outlets, and shared definition of what constitutes quality journalism - OVERLOAD provides a great starting point to begin those discussions.  It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and Booklist called it “a crucial tool for critical analysis.” 

Similarly, TRUTH MATTERS by Bruce Bartlett is a relatively short text, whose subtitle describes it as “A Citizen's Guide to Separating Facts from Lies and Stopping Fake News in Its Tracks.”  Bartlett, who worked in both the Reagan and Bush administrations, has been a contributor to Forbes and the New York Times and is a best-selling author.  He lists several reliable news and statistical sources, like Journalist’s Resource from Harvard University which we encourage our students to use.  He also notes several news verification resources (e.g., Snopes, Politifact) which we are just starting to incorporate into lesson plans. Obviously, this is an industry in flux, but as we become inundated with even more information, it is absolutely essential that we are all increasingly aware of techniques and mechanisms to aid in evaluation.  For a related an interesting perspective on confirmation bias, see this recent New York Times op-ed piece from conservative author Peter Wehner.