PGM Special Edition: If It Bleeds

Page 26

The Graphic must take responsibility for educating its readers TIFFANY HALL | COPY CHIEF

ANITIZ MUONAGOLU | PERSPECTIVES EDITOR News literacy: a concept that requires readers to be somewhat news literate to understand in the first place. It seems to be the ever-present punchline to the frustrating joke of why the news audience doesn’t seem to care to learn about the intricacies of the news cycle. As an organization, the Graphic has begun to place a good deal of emphasis on news literacy, but what does that mean? How does it succeed? How does it fall short? The best way to analyze all of these questions is to start at the beginning. News Literacy Project defines news literacy as “the ability to determine the credibility of news and other content, to identify different types of information, and to use the standards of authoritative, fact-based journalism to determine what to trust, share and act on.” In an age of increasing claims of “fake news” and the like, this seems to present a challenge to the reader to determine what is real for themselves. Yet, there is an intrinsic problem with putting the onus of discernment solely on the reader. With no clear incentive to educate themselves on complicated journalism ethics in order to read a simple news article, readers may skip the step and just trust their assumptions — a practice that seldom ends well. While there are organizations like News Literacy Project that help empower the individual to educate themselves, there is also value in taking ownership as a news agency to provide that education to readers. The Graphic has decided to take the latter approach. With behind-the-scenes blurbs in the Pixel, an intense focus on fact-checking and diversity of sources and editors’ notes to add clarity, the Graphic truly tries to go above and beyond to be news literate. But even with all that, there are still improvements to be made — both internally and externally — to better promote news literacy.

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The Pepperdine Graphic, If It Bleeds, May 10, 2021

News At the Graphic, it seems like the News team is always on the search for the next great story or development on the Pepperdine campus and beyond. Yet, with this vast network of stories, there is considerable work to be done to verify all the details. To ensure all information is properly reviewed, junior News Editor Ashley Mowreader said a collective effort to fact-check is fundamental. “It really does come to a lot of trust in my News team and affirming in them news values and making sure that they’re fact-checking things as they can,” Mowreader said. Mowreader acknowledges that beyond this effort, there are ways in which the Graphic can improve its relationship with news literacy and its readers. “I think, in some ways, we assume a lot [about] our readers,” Mowreader said. “There’s some things about a newspaper that the general person doesn’t understand. [...] One thing that I would like us to do is just to really get back into the community. Whether that’s through surveys or focus groups or interviews, just sort of asking, ‘What do you want to know more about us?’” Life & Arts Housed midway through the physical paper, the Life & Arts section seeks to share the heart of the Pepperdine campus, so to speak, sophomore Life & Arts Editor Sofia Longo said. “Life & Arts really goes into the culture and community here at Pepperdine,” Longo said. “We love to highlight students and just make our student body shine, whether that’s through profiling like our student business profiles, professor profiles or through, covering events like plays, Dance in Flight [and] stuff

like that.” Giving back to this same community in the form of accurate reporting, Longo said her staff focuses on fact-checking, adding in context when necessary, extensive editing and finding reputable and diverse sources. “I push for a really strong emphasis on diversity this semester, just to make sure that everything is well rounded and we are trying to represent the Pepperdine student population as fairly as possible,” Longo said. Sports Every buzzer hitting three-pointer to record-breaking track run eventually finds it way to the sports section of the Graphic. The Sports section connects to the community through sports and feats of athleticism. “I think the information in your average sports game story is usually pretty verifiable, but, we do take a lot of pride in getting the score right, getting spelling right of last names, getting quotes right,” senior Sports Editor Paxton Ritchey said. “I think we take a lot of pride in asking the right questions after the game, so that, our audience can see more of the game than what they just got on TV.” Sports also isn’t just backstage exclusives with players and game highlights. The team also covers important stories and conditions the players face. The biggest aspect of news literacy, especially for sports, is confirming pieces of information that players may not even be able to go on record about, such as the Sports section’s article titled “Pepperdine Cross Country/Track Athletes Describe Misconduct of Former Coach.” “We didn’t print a single thing that was just hearsay — we got it all confirmed, and I think that’s really important for readers to know,” Ritchey said. “We’re not in the business of rumors, we’re not in the business of speculation. Everything we report, we’re putting our name


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Articles inside

Toeing the line: perspective of a student-athlete and student journalist

9min
pages 40-42

Under the microscope: College athletes embrace public status

6min
pages 38-39

SPORTS

5min
page 37

Entertainment journalists discuss ‘beneath the fluff

4min
page 31

What does it mean to be part of the visuals team?

5min
page 30

The Graphic must take responsibility for educating its readers

7min
pages 26-27

Combat misleading information by seeking factual accuracy

5min
pages 28-29

Pepp community voices opinions about today’s news media, PGM

8min
pages 34-36

PERSPECTIVES

5min
pages 22-23

News junkies describe what keeps them hooked

5min
pages 20-21

The news: hurting instead of helping?

5min
page 12

Pepperdine students wrestle with news bias

7min
pages 10-11

History of the Graphic stresses responsibility of student journalists

14min
pages 14-19

Former Graphic journalists reflect on controversial reporting

7min
pages 8-9

NEWS

4min
page 7

Letter from the editors

2min
pages 4-6

The double-edged sword: social media as a news source

6min
page 13
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