LESSON PLAN

Level: Grades 5 to 12
About the Author: This lesson has been adapted from an article by Dr.
David Considine, Professor, Instructional
Technology & Media Studies. Department of
Curriculum and Instruction, Reich College of
Education, Appalachian State University. Reprinted
with permission from Telemedium, Volume 39,
Numbers 1-2, National Telemedia Council,
Madison, Wisconsin. First/Second Quarter 1993.

How to Analyze the News

Overview

The following lesson offers an analytical framework teachers, media specialists and parents may use with children and
students of various ages, to help them understand the process by which news is constructed.

Preparation and Materials

 Read the educational backgrounder Analyzing the News: Introduction

Procedure

An Analytical Framework: Exploring the News as Stories For the Young Child

A rather simple approach to begin this process with younger children, links broadcast news to literature by exploring the
news as stories. Since K-6 students typically study stories and children's literature, this method provides a context with
some potentially useful consequences.

The first thing this does is move the news from the sheltered and protected domain where it is seen as a reflection of
reality, to a position among all other television programs. Now it can be seen as a construction or representation of a
partial reality, rather than reality itself. It can be revealed as a series of selected stories (national, state, regional, local),
each of which fits a particular genre (human interest, political, crime/violence) and comes to us replete with codes,
conventions and a cast of characters—both stereotypical and non-stereotypical.

Serving as our guide, master (or mistress) of ceremonies and electronic shaman or storyteller, is the anchor. He or she
joins all the stories together, presenting them in a way meant to both inform and entertain us. Any analysis of these
stories in terms of both form and content will reveal assumptions about what constitutes news, what interests the
American public and the relationship between news, public opinion and public policy.

While these issues are perhaps beyond the realm of young children, this age group is perfectly capable of exploring
how stories are created and from whose perspective or point of view they are told. In fact, the types of activities often
covered in their work with children's literature, fit nicely into the media literacy framework. It is now quite common to find

www.mediasmarts.ca
1
© 2012 MediaSmarts
 How to Analyze the News ● Lesson Plan ● Grades 5– 12

young children being asked to retell a famous story from the perspective of another character. For example, telling the
story of Jack and the Beanstalk through the eyes of the giant or the giant's wife. One excellent book based upon this
concept is The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs (Scieszka) which goes directly to the question of how the facts of the story
must be related to who is doing the telling. Having used this book with children, student teachers and adults, I have
found it to be an excellent introduction to critical thinking and viewing skills.

Classroom Application:

 Talk with students about stories.

 What kinds themes and characters do you find in stories?
 How is the news like a story?
 How is it different?
 How does the point of view of the person or character telling a story affect us?
 What is a possible problem when we only get one person's point of view?

Describe the term Bias:

Bias is a one-sided view, which a person may have because of some reason or motivation to see things in a certain
way. For example, if two people had a fight in the schoolyard, each one would report the incident according to his/her
point of view. Other people who saw the fight might also have a certain bias or point of view when they tell the story,
depending on the experience they brought to the fight, and their feelings about the people involved in the fight.

Ask students to recount the story of the Three Little Pigs.

 Who is/are the bad guy(s) in this story? How do you know?
 Who is/are the good guy(s) in this story? How do you know?

Read Jon Scieszka's story The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs to students.

 Who are the good and bad guys in this version of the story?
 How is this version different from the usual version?
 Who are we more likely to believe—the wolf or the three pigs? Why? (This might be a good opportunity to
discuss stereotypes.)
 How would you define a reliable story-teller?
 How can you tell the difference between fact and opinion? (An optional activity here is the activity sheet
Wolves: Fact or Opinion.)

Tape a couple of age-appropriate news stories (as presented by a network anchor) and play them for students. For
each, ask:

 What is this story about?

 Who is telling these stories?
 Whose perspective do we hear?

www.mediasmarts.ca
2
© 2012 MediaSmarts
 How to Analyze the News ● Lesson Plan ● Grades 5– 12

 Whose perspective is missing?

 How might another perspective affect the story?
 What is fact?
 What is opinion?

For the Upper Grades

From the upper level of the elementary school onwards, the following framework is a practical method for helping
children deconstruct news, recognizing its various components and the how it is assembled. This method can help them
become critical thinkers and viewers as they evaluate the way the mass media selects and filters information. Those
teachers who are interested in multicultural education can study the news to examine ethnocentric bias and the way
other cultures and countries are covered. While ABC, for example, claims to be "world news," any honest appraisal of
their content would have to ask just whose world is being represented.

A Framework for Deconstructing News: Recognizing its components and the process of assembling it

The Stories: Have students create an itemized list of each story covered on a broadcast or in an issue of a newspaper.
This is fascinating when compared to a paper or broadcast from the same day. If it is news, why do they not all cover the
same stories, or cover them the same way?

The Sequence: Have students list the stories in the order in which they appear. This could be according to the front
page, the lead or opening story etc. Students intuitively know that the most important story is up front. Comparing lead
stories in newspapers and news programs again reveals the subjective nature of this priority.

The Scope: Here students concentrate on the running time, the space or column inches devoted to a story. Students will
begin to note that some stories that do not rank as high in sequence, actually rank quite high on the scope scale,
especially if there is graphic footage with entertainment values or high levels of conflict.

The Structure: How is the story structured? What does it consist of? This includes aspects such as a lead-in by the
anchor, live interview in studio with a key figure in the story; analysis from a reporter or commentator; news box or graphics
behind the anchor's head; on the scene report from place with high recognition, e.g. Congress, or the Supreme Court.

The Style: Related to the structure, this now deals with the look and feel of the piece. This can be described as the
aesthetics or mise en scene (see Visual Messages, Considine and Haley 1992). It can include posture and body
language of the reporters and anchor as well as consideration of the camera angle. Students can begin to look at the
framing process and ask not just what is shown but what is left out, what the camera is not showing. This helps them to
recognize that the camera can lie by showing only a partial picture. The set in which the anchor is located also is part of
the style. Tom Brokaw's newsroom, with its monitors and computer banks, seems like the control tower at Cape
Kennedy or some government war room. The overall style conveys power upon the anchor or network and encourages
the viewer to surrender to their authority and point of view.

The Statement and Slant: This can be presented on a simple scale of bias running from neutral in the center to positive
or negative. Students need to evaluate each story in terms of its objectivity. When bias is detected, students have to
agree upon the bias, locating it in terms of visual or verbal cues. We have described this elsewhere in terms of "weighted
words," "loaded language," and "prejudiced pictures."

www.mediasmarts.ca
3
© 2012 MediaSmarts
 How to Analyze the News ● Lesson Plan ● Grades 5– 12

The Sponsor: Since the news exists because of advertising revenue, it should not be isolated from those who bring it to
us. The advertisements enable us to read the news in terms of who brings it to us--and more importantly, what
assumptions they have about us. By reading the commercials we are in fact reading ourselves. We intuitively know that
Saturday morning cartoons are often presented by the makers of fast food, action toys and high-sugar cereals that are
based on toy or cartoon characters. Those sponsors are targeting what they see as the nature and needs of young
viewers. If television news is heavily sponsored by insurance companies, alcohol manufacturer's, headache relief
remedies, hemorrhoidal suppositories and ocean cruises, what do we learn about audience demographics? What age
group, what income bracket and what fears and fantasies does the news and its sponsors target? How might the content
of the news shape the products that it promotes and vice versa?

www.mediasmarts.ca
4
© 2012 MediaSmarts
 How to Analyze the News ● Student Handout

Wolves: Fact or Opinion

Identify which of the following statements are facts, and which are opinions. How can you find out this information?

Statement Fact or Opinion? Why?

Wolves are sly, cunning and mean.

Wolves live in packs or families.

Some North American native people

think that the wolf is brave, loyal and

Wolves are carnivores.

A wolf will only eat meat from a

freshly killed animal.

Wolves have supernatural powers.

Wolves are very clever.

Wolves are always hungry.

Wolves will accept humans into their

pack.

Some Inuit people use wolves as

work animals.

Wolves can dig with their paws.

Wolves will gang up on a member of

their own pack.

Wolves have a nine-week gestation

period.

www.mediasmarts.ca
© 2012 MediaSmarts
 How to Analyze the News ● Student Handout

Analyzing the News: Introduction

I had already agreed to write this piece for Telemedium and was well under way on the article when the October 24th
[1992] issue of TV Guide hit the stands. For those who missed the issue, this was the one with the front page
proclaiming "Teaching Kids How to Watch TV." Many of us involved in the media literacy movement had been
contacted by the reporter and had assisted in the preparation of this piece. I myself had been interviewed extensively,
consulted during the editing of the piece, and I had written dealing with various aspects of media literacy. The staff of
National Telemedia Council and other media organizations around the country, well aware of the enormous circulation
of TV Guide looked forward to the publication of the piece in the belief that it could make a significant contribution to the
public's awareness of the media literacy movement. While most of us had, in the past, had some experience with telling
the press one thing and seeing another in print, we blissfully suspended disbelief, opting instead to believe that this time
the press would get it right.

"Point of View" Matters

Before I get down to the reality of what actually found its way into print, let me respond to those of you who are asking,
"what has TV Guide got to do with news?" The answer rather depends on how we define news. For our purposes the
article in question contained information, that for many readers would have been new. This information had been
researched, collected, written, edited and published. During the process, the reporter had to assemble the facts and
opinions from a variety of sources, review them, verify various elements for accuracy about the target audience (reader)
and the various time, space and format constraints of the publication. That process radically curtailed the initial length of
the story, gutting key facts with the result that a potentially powerful contribution to the media literacy movement was
severely undermined and went to press full of inaccuracies and confusion. However, this didn’t undermine the power of
the piece, which reached TV Guide’s extensive readership audience. I discovered this first-hand. Since the article
named me and told readers I was at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, any number of enterprising
individuals from all over the country consulted their directory assistants and ended up at the other end of my Darth
Vader speaker/telephone. Happily, many of these individuals wanted to buy a copy of my book, which the article
referred to but never named. Happily many of these callers were from other publications or television stations wanting
to do follow up pieces. Unhappily, all of them fixated on television rather than on media literacy. This was the direct
result of the article's failure to put television viewing within the broader context of media education.

Indeed, though the media now pay attention to our movement, it seems to be invariably filtered through their eyes and
their perspective. This trend was also evident on March 3rd, 1992 when ABC's American Agenda segment of their
evening news, reduced the media literacy movement to a simple case of critical viewing of television. Having been
interviewed for the piece and having spoken to numerous individuals whose words and/or faces finally made their way
to the screen, the consensus seems to be that the reporters arrived with preconceived assumptions about what the
content and format would be. In the end, they merely fitted “reality” into this framework as they constructed their "story."

This experience demonstrates the importance of understanding how news, like other genres, is a constructed text.
Working with news analysis is central to any education system that claims to produce responsible citizens for a
democratic society. Teachers and media specialists wishing to win support for media literacy in their schools can do so
by focusing attention on the critical thinking and viewing skills associated with analyzing the news.

www.mediasmarts.ca
© 2012 MediaSmarts