Who owns the News?
Module 2, Activity 1.4 - Media Convergence
Teacher Page
(student page for this lesson)

Introduction:

In this lesson, students learn about planning and pitching an electronic news story while they learn about media convergence. They work through the process of pitching the story from being given the topic and fact checking to assessing the authority of their sources and planning how to get other sources. Students end by looking at a real story about the broadcast news magazine 60 Minutes, and the consequences of a story that was not sufficiently checked.

Activities:

Task One - Searching (a quick scan)
Using one of the links listed on the student page for this lesson, students familiarize themselves with the basic issues in Media Convergence. A series of basic learnings are also listed so students can check their information. One of the links, the Media Convergence tracker does not have authority. Although it is hosted by a reputable site, it allows the public to enter information, thereby removing the authority of the site. Teachers can use this link as a starting point for the discussion about evaluation of sources. You might also choose to look at frequently visit sites with similar problems such as Wikipedia.

Task Two - Digging (in depth research)
Discuss with your students how an initial look has given them some basic information, but a reporter always goes much beyond. Students should find at least 3 independent internet sources (not different pages from the same site), and try to balance the points of view that they represent. For each source, have the students complete a research card. The card offers the opportunity to discuss when to quote a source and when to paraphrase. However, the primary focus is on assessing the quality of a potential source. Discuss each category with the students before they complete the activity. Once the activity is done, discuss how to assess the credibility of a source who is a person.

Task Three - Beyond the Internet
Task three has students plan potential personal contacts and assess them. The purpose of this activity is to help students extend the practice of finding and questioning sources.

Task Four - Assessing the Sources
Students should look at all of their prepared sources to see if the story is ready to tell. Once they feel their basic pitches are prepared (see the student version of this lesson), they are ready to view a real life example of a story where sources needed more checking. You can either watch the video of the CBC coverage online or read the print version.

The focus in the lesson is student assessment and analysis. Student assess the quality of the content of examples of journalism that they find, and test their own work against the ideas presented by experts. They also question the authority of sources and apply real world events to their experiences. As the teacher, your role is to facilitate this discussion. Focus on probing student assumptions and guiding their progress through the process of pitching a story.