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Navigating Newstalk
214 Plays1 year ago
The landscape of the mainstream news and media has drastically changed over the the last two or three decades - from the sheer amount of outlets from which one could get their news, to the pervasiveness of opinion blurring the lines between editorial and journalistic reports, to say that consuming the news is confusing would be an understatement! So where do we even start to navigate our way through the media? This week, we're chatting about news literacy and the necessity of context, and we're sharing our favourite go-to journalistic sources.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Promotion
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome back to the Modern Lady podcast. You're listening to episode 141. Hi, I'm Michelle. And I'm Lindsay. And today we are talking about how to find credible news sources and just how much news we should be taking in.
00:00:26
Speaker
The landscape of the mainstream news and media has drastically changed over the last two or three decades. From the sheer amount of outlets from which one could get their news, to the pervasiveness of opinion blurring the lines between editorial and journalistic reports, to say that consuming the news is confusing would be an understatement.
00:00:47
Speaker
So where do we even start to navigate our way through the media today? Let's chat about it. But first, the best way that you can support The Modern Lady is by subscribing to our podcast on whatever app you use to listen to podcasts and by sharing us with your friends. We also welcome you to join us over at patreon.com forward slash The Modern Lady podcast, where for just $5 a month, you will get exclusive and extra content.
Prayers and Ways to Connect
00:01:15
Speaker
This week we are offering up the work we put into writing and producing this episode in combination with our prayers for our brothers and sisters in Israel and surrounding areas. Two weekends ago, Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, the world bore witness to a terrorist attack by Hamas on innocent civilians in Israel. While this region has seen its share of terrible violence over the centuries, this attack was ruthless and horrific on a whole other level.
00:01:44
Speaker
Please join us as we pray for the innocent who continue to suffer there and for peace to come to the Holy Land in the Middle East. If you would like to leave us a comment or message us about today's episode, the best way to get in touch with us is on Instagram at the Modern Lady podcast. But be sure to stay tuned to the end of the episode for other ways to connect because we would love to hear from you.
Focus on News and Media Discussion
00:02:12
Speaker
This week's episode is going to be a special edition of the Modern Lady podcast. We don't have a tip of the week because today, with everything going on in the world, particularly in Israel and the Middle East, as we mentioned in the opening, we want to have a simple and focused discussion on the news, the media, and the next right thing. Right, Lindsay?
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's right, Michelle. So I got a message from one of our followers who asked me how we find news sources, right? Like in this ever changing media landscape, especially since the pandemic, people have lost trust in a lot of the media sources that we trusted for years, right? We always at six o'clock, we would let Dan Rather into our homes after dinner and you trusted what Dan Rather had to say.
00:03:03
Speaker
And when so many of us actually don't even have cable anymore and need to find news on our own, it gets even more complicated. And then with so many smaller producers, including you and I, which give updates on world events,
00:03:18
Speaker
And we are not fully trained for this. You're a little bit trained in this we can talk about that in a minute Yeah, it's really hard to figure this out And so somebody asked me how we do it the one thing that you and I have learned and it is a skill I think we've picked up over the six seasons of this podcast is we are pretty good at researching and pulling out important bits of information and
History and Impact of Media Ownership
00:03:45
Speaker
and like checking it right you realize very quickly when you have a podcast and that strangers are hearing your voice that you better know what you're talking about and so we learned in that first or second episode that we better triple quadruple check things so we will share a bit of the process that we use when we're seeking out news stories. Yeah you're right when you say it's just a changing landscape and the thing too I think that we're all like struggling to
00:04:14
Speaker
catch up with is that it has been one way for a very long time, like generationally, right? What you're saying, we, we used to have the six o'clock newscast and that's really where you got the news that, and then the daily newspaper, right? And within a generation.
00:04:34
Speaker
Within not even a full generation, it has completely changed. There's very little vestiges of what the news and media used to be like. And so in addition to trying to figure out the news itself, we are also still trying to listen and discern the actual news that they're trying to tell. So if it seems overwhelming, I think it's because it is.
00:05:03
Speaker
It absolutely is. I want to open with a little bit of a frank discussion about the media in general. Okay, so when you're looking at who owns some of the big media corporations, I'm just going to toss a few out there. And these were just ones I knew off the top of my head, and this is without digging. So I think it's pretty shocking. Here's one, Henry Ford, yes, from Ford Manufacturing, from Ford Cars.
00:05:29
Speaker
During the early parts of World War II, he purchased his local newspaper, I think in Illinois, so that he could completely preach his belief in anti-Semitism and further what the Nazis were saying over in Germany. And so I don't think the people in that community knew he bought the newspaper. They're all of a sudden just seeing article after article after article against the Jews.
00:05:52
Speaker
This one shocked me. I was watching a documentary on this huge cult that are called the Moonies. That's their unofficial name. They're technically the Unification Church and they were founded by Sun Myung Moon. And they own the Washington Times. They founded it. They created that newspaper. Now that's a different newspaper than the Washington Post. But when you look at them side by side, you would fully expect the Washington Times to be a legacy media old timey newspaper. But no, it's being run
00:06:25
Speaker
Jeff Bezos, the bajillionaire, trillionaire, owner of Amazon, he owns the Washington Post, the other one, Falun Gong, which is, quote, a new religious movement. And we don't quite know what that means yet, right? A lot of information coming out of China.
00:06:41
Speaker
I think we have some sympathies towards them, but we don't fully know the ins and outs of that. They own the Epoch Times, which has some great content in it. It definitely trends towards the right. But just so people are aware, that's owned by this small religious group out of China. And then finally, you can even look at Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime abuser.
00:07:04
Speaker
the recruiter who worked for Jeffrey Epstein. She was his girlfriend. If you watch the documentary on her family, it's called the House of Maxwell. Her family is one of the huge media families. There's two of them in England, the Morox and the Maxwells. And your mind is going to be blown about who she was long before the Epstein thing. So this is just off the top of my head, some of the people owning our newspapers. Yeah, it should give you pause.
00:07:34
Speaker
Well, wow, I didn't know many, if any, of these origin stories of today's news sources, to be honest. The Epoch Times, yes, but that's so interesting. It's actually a story in itself, as I know, that I'll probably be deep diving later. But it does make total sense to then, knowing all this, to remind ourselves that
00:08:01
Speaker
Someone had to start these companies and those people naturally have their own opinions and leanings. And so when we know that it's reasonable for us to expect biases to show through.
00:08:17
Speaker
in their corporations, right? Yes. Sorry, Michelle, I think you make a great point too. You said corporations, their whole point is to
Challenges in News Consumption
00:08:24
Speaker
make money too, right? Yes. And just like with Facebook, we know that the people will buy more things and spend more money and spend more time on something when they're angry. So keeping that in mind as well, the whole purpose of these, yeah, yeah, yeah, spread news, but also make money.
00:08:41
Speaker
Mm hmm. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So like kind of continuing along that less altruistic train of thought, you know, there is I know we talked about you talked about Henry Ford using the media to perpetrate his own like message and ideologies. And I think of like the Jim Morrison quote of, you know, whoever controls the media controls the mind.
00:09:10
Speaker
And I think that there's both at play. There are like all of these influences, the founder's bias, the message desiring to be put out there, a desire to control what makes it out to the average person. And then, yeah, all of these things are
00:09:31
Speaker
basically put the onus back on us who consume the news, right? So the consumption of news seems like in the past it was maybe more of a passive thing. You just listened to the news. And so it is coming back on us to kind of up our game, so to speak, and how we approach the sources and information that is out there.
00:09:51
Speaker
Especially because at our fingertips with the click of one button, we can spread those stories and do the work that they couldn't have dreamed of 20 years ago for circulation of news stories. True. We can do that for them. I think the point here is that no matter what the source or no matter who the owner or founder of any of these news sources, we actually have a lot more power as the consumer than we think we did.
00:10:18
Speaker
And so anybody could have started those, but we, as a thoughtful consumer, need to know what we're looking for when we're reading, and it's more important now than ever. And I just wanna point out too, and I'm just pulling this out of my head, but this appetite for a nonstop, salacious news stream, this is not new. We might've had this brief period of those great newscasters, the Walter Cronkite of the 60s,
00:10:47
Speaker
for a brief period, but because, as you know, Michelle, I've been so deep in Victorian literature. In the Victorian times, you had multiple newspapers a day. So there was like your morning post, your afternoon one, and they were all tabloid-y. And the worst details in them, like if you look up any murder case, like it was
00:11:06
Speaker
detailed. People loved it. They ate it up. They bought the newspaper first thing in the morning and at lunch and at dinner. They were dirt cheap. They had the people calling out the headlines on the street corners, right? So like our appetite has always been there for it.
00:11:21
Speaker
Um, and I think it's really interesting that it was really fueled at that period and then really picking back up to that. And I'll never forget when you explained to me, cause you have a background in broadcasting that we can talk about in a second, um, about how when that switched the 24 hour news cycle came out and before they only needed to fill a certain amount of time, right? With headlines. And suddenly you need to keep people hooked in on your channel to make advertising revenue the entire day. Um, yeah, that changes the whole game.
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah, that was just my own anecdotal observations from working in local news. I worked for about five years while I was in college and for a few years after that.
00:12:01
Speaker
And I did learn a lot about what goes on behind the scenes. One of those things is, like you just said, the amount of time that news corporations have to fill in a day constantly kind of outweighs sometimes the amount of news that there is. You can't just actually stop at a headline.
00:12:26
Speaker
because you still have 23 hours to go. So that's where you start getting, I find, then you have the panels that come in. And while a lot of times, credit where it's due, you try to find experts to sit on the panels. But even those experts have their own opinions. And sometimes it's an editorial segment of the show. And sometimes it's just the newscast, which tries to be a bit,
00:12:55
Speaker
more unbiased, but all of it meshes together in this one channel and then compound that, you have multiple news sources trying to do the same thing. So that definitely puts a different kind of perspective on the news is that they have to also generate content. Not just taking what is happening and reporting it, they also have to generate something as well, just practically speaking.
00:13:23
Speaker
And then another thing I learned too in just watching the news play out behind the scenes is that a lot of the times you referenced some of the iconic newscasters, right? Like Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite.
00:13:40
Speaker
I do find, and this changed even while I was working at the news station, is there was a shift between like typical, I would say, beat reporters who covered like a specific beat for sometimes years and years. And I think over the years they did develop a sense of expertise on one area. And they just kind of covered those stories that pertained to that industry or that segment of society.
00:14:09
Speaker
the agricultural report on Sunday nights, I think it was on our local news. And while I was a student, I worked with some of these reporters and journalists at the local station who still covered a beat. Like they were known even in our local news station for a specific topic. But as they started to retire,
00:14:35
Speaker
And the news was also changing still at the same time. It was a little bit less of that. So the reporters would still meet in the mornings, usually with the news director.
00:14:45
Speaker
And they would talk about the things that were going on that they would like to cover for that day's newscast, and they start assigning things. But it was a little bit more spread out amongst people. So I started realizing that the reporters only have a certain amount of time in a day to learn everything they can about a story, find everything they can to support
00:15:10
Speaker
the facts to put together and then put together all of that information into maybe a one-minute package and have all of that ready for 6 p.m., right? And I was like, oh, there's no possible way they can be experts. And to be fair, I don't think any of them intentionally or deliberately
00:15:33
Speaker
set themselves up as the authority on every news story they produce. But we are still used to, as the consumers, we're still used to Walter Cronkite. And we see them as experts, and then we get a little bit upset when maybe we're like, but you didn't
00:15:52
Speaker
you didn't speak to all sides of this story when I think it's changed so much without us even noticing that that isn't really the reality of news and broadcast news anymore. So once again, so much of this is like now because of the immediacy of the news industry, we just all have such a bigger part to play as the audience than we may ever had before.
00:16:18
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And I think one more point, just that when you really think about the news, and this is something that I've learned through having a spouse in policing, and I find there's actually a great parallel to those in media, is there is often so much more that they know
00:16:35
Speaker
that they cannot share, that they legally cannot share. They need to protect the police in it. And I know from a policing standpoint that the public gets like 3% of what the police know or are currently working on. I mean, it only makes sense, right? They can't show their hand. And so we have to remember that too, as consumers, that there is more that I'm sure that these journalists would like to share from their sources that they've heard. But
00:16:59
Speaker
until things can get checked and double checked and triple checked so that they don't get sued or until the police give them the go ahead to share more information. One of the parts of my husband's job is he sometimes writes the media release for the case they're working on. And so I know that what they're sharing is the tip of the iceberg and that there is so much more below. And so I think going into every news story with that knowledge that everyone knows that there's so much more, but we forget that. But then if you pause and go,
00:17:28
Speaker
There's so much more going on here and not everyone's being heard and not every side of the story is being represented. We're only getting that little, like you said, one minute snippet of a much larger story.
00:17:39
Speaker
And that's something to consider too, is that if we're going to be consuming such massive amounts of news that pertain to every corner of the globe, there is a whole global history of context that
00:17:58
Speaker
we probably don't have like on the tip of our tongues and so we can't even put into context a lot of these news stories off the top of our heads and the news providers based on parameters if it's print they might only have a certain amount of space or a word count they're working with
00:18:19
Speaker
And with news, it's time they have to work within. But there's like an entire history. There's geopolitical history that's going on. There's cultural history. There's just so, so much the sheer amount of news that we want to consume in our society does not compute. It doesn't go with the amount of education we have behind it to back it up.
00:18:48
Speaker
I can't think of a better example of what's going on right now in Israel. You and I were both talking about how we were ashamed to admit to one another that we didn't really understand what was going on. We didn't understand how when Israel became a nation state.
00:19:06
Speaker
How Palestine fits into it and all this and and the truth is I don't think we need to be embarrassed about that or ashamed I think that when When you can learn more and no more you should and that's what we're gonna talk about here But I just want to say that for anybody else listening to going I didn't actually google it until this weekend either Well, you're not alone in that neither did me and and so what you were just saying Michelle And I think this is so important is that world was sudden trying to become knowledgeable about something very quickly But you're right there are as
00:19:36
Speaker
decades of nuance there that we're not going to pick up on just short little snippets of news right now and so it is a lot to process and we need to strike that balance between taking in information that I do think I do think as a responsible citizen of this world we should know what's going on you know we've got eight kids between you and I we need to know what's going on in the world but there is that balance of protecting also then your heart and your mind and your spirit and
Finding Credible News Sources
00:20:06
Speaker
We'll get into that in a little bit, but like never before, we have access to these countless sources and all of these sources have nuance and decades of information and it's coming from all different places and then it's just so we are overwhelmed by it. And so we thought we would now share with you some of the things that you can do to look for credible news sources, some steps that we recommend.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah, because I think we're realizing as we talk this out in this episode today, is that it requires a little bit of legwork on our part to be responsible consumers of the news. Right? And so how to even do that, it does actually happen.
00:20:51
Speaker
like in our own homes. Yeah, so I found out that this is called news literacy or media literacy. But news literacy is a term that means having critical thinking skills, which allows you to determine whether the news is coming from a legitimate and credible source or not.
00:21:08
Speaker
So then media literacy is just the expanded term of that, which takes into account the fact that media sources are changing and expanding at a rapid pace. What is so interesting is that news literacy is definitely a course that's being taught in colleges and universities.
00:21:24
Speaker
I didn't know that's what it was called, but this is something that I taught my kids when I was homeschooling them. So we would pull up the front page of a newspaper. I would have my children, and at this point they were maybe, the oldest two were eight and 10, nine and 11, like around there, and they would read, and I would choose which article, you know? There was one about a drive-through, okay? If a drive-through restaurant should be put near this residential area, that was one that comes to mind, and I'd have my kids read it, and then they would immediately want to talk about it, and I'm like,
00:21:53
Speaker
wait, look up another source, look up more before we start talking about it, look at it from, and then I'd say, well, tell me how this person feels about it. Like, what would be their argument? What would be the other argument? And we really worked from a very young age at teaching them how to be very critical thinkers and critical readers and not just start talking about something without doing a bit more research. And that's what news literacy is, which I think is really great.
00:22:18
Speaker
I love that. I love that the word literacy to me always makes me think about learning how to read. And you do have to learn how to read, yes. I was just going to say and that's exactly like what news literacy is, is you're learning how to read the news, which remember we were just talking about maybe feeling a little bit embarrassed by like not being
00:22:42
Speaker
experts on all these things and on reading the news and things like that. But it is a newer skill that you have to develop and grow in. So I actually quite like the term news literacy. And for us, we also try to work a worldview into our homeschool as well with news.
00:23:09
Speaker
Besides talking about news that's happening in the world, we also do a lot of history and geography study in our homeschool. And I find that lends itself to great discussions too. So much. Yeah, so I find that by doing that, by the time the news hits my kids' ears,
00:23:27
Speaker
they hopefully have a framework to process things in. And then depending on their ages and their different thresholds for information and what kind of information comes in, to let that into practice within the school of the family. This is a safe place. There's no better place to learn how to discuss and dissect information and sort out the biases and contexts
00:23:57
Speaker
than with your siblings and parents. So I think that's a great thing that we can do is news literacy in our homes.
00:24:08
Speaker
And it's okay if we're all learning this right now together. Like this is brand new. There was no internet till I was like late teens, early twenties. Like this is all brand new. So the school of the family, like for us to feel comfortable too as the adults to say, I don't actually know how I feel about this yet. Let me look into it more.
00:24:27
Speaker
and we're all kind of learning together, which I think is great. You just reminded me of one of my favorite quotes. I believe it's Mark Twain, and it's that history doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. And right, knowledge of history is a huge key to understanding what's
Identifying Fake News and Biases
00:24:44
Speaker
going on right now. I just love that your kids are getting that strong foundational understanding of how the world looks geography wise throughout history and in the history of things.
00:24:53
Speaker
Um, some of the current things that we're also trying to navigate our way through our fake news, right? Like we, I won't do it. I won't do a Donald Trump impersonation. Um, fake news. I can't do it. I can't do it.
00:25:09
Speaker
Um, I don't, I didn't look into it. I don't know if he's the first person to ever use that, that term, but definitely fake news is out there before that. It was, you know, fact checkers and Snopes. And then people saying they don't trust Snopes and all that stuff. But that, that concept has been around for a while. I think we all know what that is.
00:25:27
Speaker
Now, one of the newer ones that you guys might have heard of, but you might not fully understand, is this idea of PsyOps. And I'll briefly touch on this. This actually goes hand in hand with propaganda, which has been around since the World Wars, if not earlier.
00:25:43
Speaker
It's anything where it's psychological manipulation, right? When it's whatever media is being put out there, whether it's Russian bots on Twitter or a full-out political campaign commercial attacking the other side. It's that, but this one is a little bit deeper. PsyOps is like
00:26:03
Speaker
really trying to move large groups of people into believing something that really get people's, like changing people's minds. So all of this falls under that umbrella of propaganda of just trying to do mind control. This is an intense episode.
00:26:19
Speaker
Michelle. My mind keeps going back to 1984 too, right? Like it's all in there. Them literally going back in time and erasing the newspaper articles and rewriting them. So none of this, none of this everything old is new again. Like none of this is ultimately new.
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah. So you, Lindsay, found a great infographic, right? Yeah. And you said you found this on the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. Yes. Which is a very impressive theme. Yeah, it was a flallock hook. Yeah.
00:26:55
Speaker
We'll make acronyms out of anything. Yeah, we do. But they actually give these tips for spotting fake news. So the first one they say is to consider the source, which we've talked about extensively already like on this episode, right? Who owns the news source? What is their mission statement, perspective, bias, all these different things. Consider the source.
00:27:22
Speaker
Absolutely. Or as they say in other groups, follow the money, right? Like somebody's getting paid for sharing that news. So there's nothing wrong. You're not being a conspiracy theorist. I just want to say if you're doing any of this extra work, like don't let anybody label you that way either because you're like, well, who said that? Like if you're going to start asking these questions, this is the right thing to do. This is the proper way to go about it.
00:27:44
Speaker
The next thing is, yeah, check the author then. So there's the source, the newspaper, but then there's an author of that piece, right? Are they even a real person? That one's stumped me. So I was like, oh, right. Especially now in chat, GPT AI world. That's so true. Yes.
00:28:00
Speaker
Yeah. Are they a real person? Okay. Now I've got to go off on something else, Michelle, because this is becoming an actual issue. So I saw somebody shared this article and at first I thought it was hysterical and fake news, but I triple checked it and it is not fake news. So they were sharing that there's a bunch of these like gardening and foraging. Foraging is really popular right now, especially mushrooms are super popular, right? As we have covered in multiple spring trends episodes.
00:28:27
Speaker
Um, and so they were sharing that there's these like foraging books that look really professional available on Amazon. I double checked. They sure enough are, but they're not written by real people. They're totally just chat GPT. And so you don't really want to be getting information on what mushrooms you can pull out of the forest soil and eat on your own with your family. If you're not getting that from an actual expert and these people are claiming to be experts and these books are totally fake and they're on Amazon. Oh my goodness.
00:28:55
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was thinking, I'm like, that's maybe one of the worser things to not be getting expert advice on. Well, you don't even want to let your mind go to the other places, what other types of books can be false, right? So this was like, not even a year ago would we have been having this conversation. This is how quickly this is changing. So
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah. Is someone a real person? That's a legit question now. And then if they are, what are their credentials? Is it just me? I dropped out of university in year three. I can't really say a lot about anything. So is it me or is it like my husband? It was a master's degree. It's two different levels of education there. So yeah, what are their credentials?
00:29:32
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point. And even in the field, right? Yeah. Like they could be a doctor or a doctor in what? That's right. Let me just say all in the bro science health world, everyone's a chiropractor who's giving medical doctor advice and I'm not discounting chiropractors. They do great work, but I think they need to point out that that's their specialty, right? A lot of people then become like dietary experts, but their actual specialty is chiropractics. So yeah, knowing somebody's credentials is a big deal.
00:30:01
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. The other thing on the list is check the date. You know, was it even published now or is this news from years ago that people are just sharing now? And this can be confusing because sometimes in a current event people start sharing articles about similar things that may have happened in the past, but we're not checking the date so it makes it seem like all of this is happening right now.
00:30:29
Speaker
Whereas some of it may be more appropriately touted as historical context. And so checking the date is really important. It could be something that happened long before, or it could be current, but that would give you a much more accurate perspective on the event that's happening right now.
00:30:51
Speaker
Well, on a lighter note, in my Facebook memories, I saw in like December of years ago, I was like, is this true? Is there really a tornado watch right now? It's December. And then I'm like, no, Lindsay, it's not. Everything you click on the article is from the previous July, which makes sense and not a tornado in the middle of winter. So.
00:31:11
Speaker
Yeah. So even check your own memories. I fooled myself. That's right. Check your own memories. And speaking about checking your own problems, check your biases, right? We all have them. We all have certain core beliefs, things that are foundational to our families, to ourselves, and
00:31:26
Speaker
that there's no problem with having core values and beliefs. But when those things complete over into being like a bias where we're not even, where we're blinded, this is the problem, right? Where we're blinded to seeing what the other side could have to say and that becomes problematic. So check your bias.
00:31:43
Speaker
So the next thing is to read beyond. So don't just stop at the article you're reading. You know, laugh at that one. We do that. Yes, we do. And it's really important to do that, to really take the time to, you know, not just read even the headline.
00:32:00
Speaker
But the whole article, and then even beyond just that one article, try to find different sources on the subject as well. So especially if you are genuine and sincere about wanting to understand the current situation, and you don't just want to affirm your bias, right? If you are really trying to be honest about your outlook on especially global events,
00:32:27
Speaker
read beyond. Don't just click on the headline or one headline or one article. Invest some of that time in checking out several sources. And then just to click a little bit further is check out the supporting sources.
00:32:44
Speaker
If there are links that are there, click on those too. Read it. Read what they're having to say. One of the things, when I started reading medical journals and really looking into those things, I was shocked by how many sources that polled people, whether it was medical or anything else, where they were doing an experiment or looking at a group of people. It was maybe 35 people.
00:33:05
Speaker
Well, if I know it's 35 people giving a response on something versus 3500 people, that really shapes what I just read in that article, right? So reading those extra links, the source material is really, really, really important. It's changed my views on things more times than I would think.
00:33:23
Speaker
And I mean, like what you're saying, sometimes those supporting sources are dry. They're like the medical journals or things like that. For people who don't have like education in the medical field, that can be a lot to sift through, right? They're not light reads. And so it's very tempting to just stick with the article at hand. And sometimes I do see like the little blue font where it's a link to another article and I'm like, no.
00:33:53
Speaker
I have to be honest, just like kind of skim and at least check out the other source too. But if we want to grow in news literacy, that is something that you can't really skip. That's right. And I think you and I can both say that we've gotten better at doing that since having to click on all those links with the podcast. We've done a lot more research, I think, than we ever would have before. And so like with anything, it's a muscle and the more you learn how to read those things or
00:34:22
Speaker
you can process it a lot quicker as you get into the practice of doing it. So the next thing on the list is to ask yourself in all seriousness, is this a joke? Because that's hard to spot nowadays too, right? Like in this age of satire, especially, and I'm a big fan of satire, but sometimes it's hard to be able to differentiate between
00:34:48
Speaker
Yeah, like a joke, someone poking fun at an issue and the actual issue. Yeah, especially when publications like the Babylon Bee are becoming more and more, like are just sharing real headlines and you're like, well, that is real because some things are so laughable in this wild and crazy world. Stranger than fiction. Stranger than fiction, yep. So I have seen more times than I can count.
00:35:12
Speaker
Um, people sharing things, thinking that it's real and it's a little bit embarrassing. So you don't want egg on your face. Do your, your due diligence and be like, I think the one that was catching people off guard for a while was the Beaverton, which it sounds right. But that was Canadian satire. And this is a couple of years ago, but I even had to be like, what's the Beaverton? This is some fancy newspaper. No, it wasn't.
00:35:36
Speaker
No. And finally, the last one is ask the experts. Do more digging. One of the benefits of living in 2023 is that we do have experts at our fingertips. You have the most renowned scholars of today and yesterday or all in the palm of your hand on your phone. So there was really no excuse for not digging a little bit deeper.
00:36:00
Speaker
And and I just love that you could literally listen to Harvard professors things that people never had access to 20 years ago Right at your fingertips. So definitely ask the experts. They're right there. Mm-hmm Okay, and then just a few additional things that I found I do that some good habits I've learned over the years and things that matter to me because intellectual
Importance of Diverse Perspectives
00:36:23
Speaker
honesty and
00:36:23
Speaker
matters to me. It's a really big deal for me. I also really like to know all the details of stuff because I do speak up things and I've learned over the years that you do want to know what you're talking about. And I do believe that there is a duty and responsibility with having something like this podcast. We have all of you wonderful listeners listening. So I do really take this seriously in my own personal life.
00:36:45
Speaker
And one of the things I do is I do listen to both sides. So I listened to Al Jazeera news many times this week. I put on their news sources. I put on ours. And I want to hear what both sides have to say. I also deliberately seek out historical sources, like what we were just talking about with the experts. I do think if you can isolate and know what you're listening to right now, I do think it's really important, like even what you were saying, which is a generalized knowledge of history, to look at what people did say about the same topic.
00:37:14
Speaker
20 years ago, 10 years ago, because what is interesting is sometimes they've switched sides or the person, like people change their minds. And so to have that like bigger perspective, I think is really, really important at looking at a really complex problem. So I do seek out sometimes, like if I'm on YouTube and I'm looking up Israel, I deliberately clicked on some things from 10 years ago and then things from right now. Okay. Like I do that intentionally.
00:37:41
Speaker
Uh, and then another thing I think is really important for me is I speak with the people in my life. I want to talk to real people. They're also not experts. I'm talking, you know, my husband, my family members, um, they're not experts either, but what they feel about something matters to me. And I appreciate it even more if we have opposing opinions, um, because I, if it matters to them, I want to know why.
00:38:04
Speaker
And they put a face to that opposing position. And so I definitely bring up those conversations. One of the quotes I read, my goodness, 15, 20 years ago that has stuck with me all this time. I don't even know who said it, but I think I pinned it on Pinterest when Pinterest was brand new. It said something roughly like this. After so many years of being told not to talk about religion and politics, like at the family dinner table, it's taught us how to like not to talk about those things. Like we don't know actually how to talk about those things.
00:38:33
Speaker
And so bringing those conversations back in, especially with people I care about, it doesn't have to be a fight. I can look at them and be like, I care about you. I want to know why you have this opposing position to me. Um, and then I'll look into it. And then finally for me, the last thing I do is I've really learned in the last year or two, only lately to shut my mouth for a bit, to really not have an a knee jerk, emotional reaction. I'm very much an emotional reaction type of person.
00:39:00
Speaker
I speak quickly, I think quickly. And in the last year or two, I have learned to just pull back and sit with it for a day. I sometimes give myself 24 hours, 48 hours. I pray about it. I'm like, Lord, am I seeing this correctly? If I'm not reveal more information to me, let me know how you want me to look at it through your eyes. And a lot can happen in 24 hours of keeping your mouth shut. Let me just say that that has turned out to be one of the best things I've ever learned how to do.
00:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I love those points, especially the one that you were mentioning about seeking the different perspective, like the other side of the both sides of the issue. I absolutely do that too. In fact,
00:39:46
Speaker
I don't think I feel comfortable knowing that I'm only staying on one side of a narrative, right? It kind of makes me feel like I'm missing something. And rather than shake my confidence in my own opinion once I've then formed it, I find that looking at the other side actually strengthens it.
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And not because I feel like I can argue better, although it does help with a healthy debate to have considered the other side, but also just even from my own conscience to know that I've been honest with myself and I'm not trying to like sweep something under the rug just to like puff up my own perspective or point of view, right? Like sometimes you may not want to know the other side.
00:40:33
Speaker
that happens, but it's a good practice to fight against that temptation. And then the other point you made about speaking to real people, like the people in your life about things, I am more and more convinced that the kinds of conversations that truly change the world
00:40:50
Speaker
don't happen on social media. They happen in person amongst people face to face. And I think it's because it requires relationship and that is what's going to change the world. And I also find too that when we do that face to face that the Holy Spirit is better able to direct than our minds and our hearts.
00:41:14
Speaker
when we have these in-person discussions that it's easy to scroll past a news headline that doesn't immediately appeal to like my own perspective, but I'm way less likely to shut down an actual person in front of me, offering a different point of view. So yeah, I think that it's good to be really open to having those both sides conversations and the more
00:41:42
Speaker
in person, you can get with those the better. And this is why, just talking about this, I'm like, this is why I don't get nervous about my teenagers having exposure to other thoughts or people who have other beliefs or even things that are fundamentally opposed to the things that we believe. They go to a public school, right? They were homeschooled, but my teenagers go to a public high school
00:42:02
Speaker
And number one, we have that strong foundation that they were raised with, but they were also raised in these principles that you and I are talking about right now. Not only did we teach them to do these things, but they saw us modeling this behavior in every single interaction their dad and I have in the way we speak with each other and the way we speak with friends and whoever's welcome in our home.
00:42:22
Speaker
And so I've really seen how that generationally can turn out really, really well. And so I'm not worried at all if my kids are in a situation where they're hearing something that is totally oppositional to what we believe in our home because they have such a strong foundation and they know how to defend what they believe and that sort of thing. So this type of behavior and these practices really do form our kids from a young age as you trickle down what information they should hear, right? It really does help form them
00:42:51
Speaker
And one more thing I read that was not part of this infographic, but I read the words that you should judge hard, which means that we should really dig deep and look into something. It's that old saying. So all the things our moms and grandma said, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
00:43:06
Speaker
So if it seems too true, right? Like it all makes sense and all the clues fit into place or it's too reactionary or too weird. Like there's just no way that would happen. Why would you say something like that? If something is likely off, so judge hard. Just look deeper into things.
00:43:24
Speaker
And to go along with that, the word that keeps coming to my mind when you say to judge hard is sensationalism. When I'm consuming the news, I look for that sensationalism, the thing that makes me start to wonder,
00:43:42
Speaker
This seems like it's really all wrapped up neatly. Life isn't usually like that. What else is going on? And then the other thing too is speculation. I find that an honest news source will not deal heavily with speculation.
00:44:02
Speaker
I think that's different than asking questions. I think questions are reasonable and legitimate. And I find this a little bit more editorially, but like we were talking about earlier, sometimes that line can be muddied between opinion piece and actual reporting. It's like anyone who's telling you what is going to happen because of this other thing definitively
00:44:33
Speaker
I'm automatically a little bit suspicious of that. And it just makes me go double check that fact even more. So speculation and sensationalism are two things to be on the lookout for. Yeah. The term that kept popping into my head is devil's advocate. And this is something we do all the time in our house. Jason and I often play the devil's advocate to each other in conversations. Again, it's something we've taught our kids.
00:44:57
Speaker
And then I thought I knew the origins and you and I discussed it and we were correct. It is a Catholic thing and it did really originate in the 1500s and it's an official position for someone during the canonization process. And then just briefly I guess the canonization process is the process by which the Vatican and a whole team determine
00:45:17
Speaker
If there is enough physical proof through miracles that someone is interceding on behalf of people, which means that they're in heaven, so that they become an official saint with a capital S. Now that process can go on for 200 years sometimes, or it can be a lot less.
00:45:34
Speaker
in terms of some of our recent saints. But one of the things I absolutely love about the Catholic Church, and it actually lends itself so much to this thought process that we're talking about here about discerning things, is it is all about scientific evidence.
Adopting a Medieval Grindset
00:45:47
Speaker
And it is all about examining every single corner of something, of someone's life, of a cause, of a situation, of a miracle. It really doesn't take things at face value.
00:45:57
Speaker
And so in that canonization process, they have people that are advocating for the person, witnesses who are like, this person lived a very holy life. But then they have someone who is the devil's advocate questioning everything. You're right. That is a great model.
00:46:13
Speaker
Um, like set up for us to, you know, and we're talking about the news to scrutinize things. Like that's, that's the word, um, that you need to just take a deliberate look at things and not necessarily be afraid of what you find there because the truth is more important. I love that. Okay. And finally, um, I'm guessing most of you listening, you're just like us, you're either a mom.
00:46:40
Speaker
who stays at home or works outside of the home. You're a homemaker. You're an empty nester. You're a newlywed. Many of you probably aren't professional journalists or, you know, working for the UN or any of those jobs. And so it's like, how do the rest of us, like how much information should we know? Well, there is a term somebody on Instagram coined. I don't know if he officially came up with it, but I couldn't find anyone else that was using it. And that is at
00:47:08
Speaker
Catholicism. It's like Catholicism, but there's an extra hoe in there. And that's Brian Edwards, and he created the term medieval grind set grinding, just like a grinding work set, right? And he just talks about how in medieval times, people could literally only focus on what was going on in their own area or on their own farm. Now, I have pointed out to Brian
00:47:35
Speaker
that Michelle, you've been saying this all five, six years of this podcast. You've been in reference to Rome, right? Yes. Yeah, I love the term. It is the perfect name for what I've pondered for years. So for me, this idea originated in the Catholic faith. So we're on that subject anyways. We have so many of these great saints who have gone through this scrutiny.
00:48:02
Speaker
And they've reached the heights of virtue and holiness here on earth. So much so that we look up to them as role models, right? And spiritual mentors, how to live well, how to live a good life, how to live a holy life. And I don't think any of us could read any of their stories or biographies and accuse them of indifference to the plight of their fellow man and the world, right? So then I've always thought,
00:48:30
Speaker
But they didn't have the media. For so many of them, the printing press hadn't even been invented yet. So for them to reach this state of holiness, for them to be able to carry out their lives so well that they are noteworthy in history, it didn't require them to have 24 access to every piece of information to have ever been spoken, written, or otherwise.
00:48:57
Speaker
And I think they just knew that they were called to whatever was going on in their lives here and now. They would not, for example, with the saints, they would not have known much about the Pope or the Vatican at all. As an example, there was no news for that, let alone what was being discussed and debated in the Vatican. They just knew that their duty was to pray for the Pope and for the bishops and the church. That's it.
00:49:26
Speaker
And then they were to go to work or be present with their kids and their communities and to serve these people to the best of their abilities and their saints because of it. So certainly we don't have the ironic luxury of living in a time without the media, but we can adopt that mindset or that medieval grindset.
00:49:54
Speaker
We can adopt it to a certain extent and practice discerning what information I need to be well informed and aware of what's going on in the world and in a large way so that I can pray for the people and situations that really need it and then when to stop consuming for the sake of consumption and sensationalism and really get to work making the world a better place starting with where we are right now.
00:50:24
Speaker
And where you and I are right now is we are both wives and mothers, right? Our vocation is wife and mother. And this reminded me of a post I wrote on Instagram back in 2022. In fact, I realized I've spoken a lot on this because there's been so many things in the last couple of years. And this reminder that we really only need to know as much as we need to do well in our duties and our vocations, right?
00:50:49
Speaker
and to serve our communities in that way and so this has been happening so many times and I'm like oh my goodness like we've talked about this a lot and we did an episode that we highly recommend you listen to as well called the mission or the mission doesn't change and it's just about that core what our core mission is in our vocation but this idea of also guarding your heart and guarding your home
00:51:12
Speaker
Reminding of me of this one post I wrote and just I'm gonna sum it up right now But it's this I read it earlier and it really jumped out at me So says you find yourself struggling with how much you should know so that you can be informed But let me tell you this you only need to know as much information as possible to do the duties of your vocation Well, my vocation is wife and mother not podcaster not journalist not world peace negotiator wife and mother full stop and
00:51:38
Speaker
Sure, I kind of need to know a few things. My husband has a job that is affected by the current situation and I've got teens who have questions and worries and we've got listeners of this podcast that we are connected to around the world. But my vocation is wife and mother and I've got to get my own house in order. I'm going to remember that my gifts of intelligence and fortitude and my ability to work hard are meant to be lavished upon the people who need me most.
00:52:05
Speaker
My vocation is wife and mother. I can't solve any of the problems happening outside of my front door, but I can prep dinner for our family tonight. My vocation is wife and mother, and I can choose to stop scrolling through the constant news stories now. So I think that we have to remember too that one of the greatest weapons of the enemy is misinformation and sowing the seeds of distrust.
00:52:30
Speaker
And so this constant scrolling, this constant influx, you have to control that yourself. I have to control that, right? I think that just remembering that it's good as a responsible citizen, as part of the body of Christ, the church universal, that you have an understanding of what's going on, but what the details, the minutia, you only really need to know what's going to make you a better wife and mother because that has to be, that is your vocation. That's what's going to get you to heaven.
Recommended News Sources
00:53:11
Speaker
Normally, it would now be time for our What We're Loving This Week segment of the show. But as we mentioned in the opening of today's episode, we wanted to keep the tone of this episode more solemn out of respect for what is going on in the Middle East right now. Instead, we wanted to share some of our favourite news sources and the outlets that we have been appreciating for their efforts to deliver honest, clear and contextual headlines with as little bias as possible.
00:53:40
Speaker
One of them is the Instagram account, AllSidesNow, and you can find that at AllSidesNow on Instagram. What I love about this account is that it will show in a carousel news headlines from the whole spectrum of political leanings, right? On the same news event. So they'll have a news event and they'll show an example of a headline and from a more left-leaning perspective politically.
00:54:09
Speaker
And then they'll have an example of a more centrist leaning news source and a headline from a more right leaning source so that you can see in real time what the differences might be depending on your bias or these news sources bias. And so we find that a very helpful Instagram account to follow.
00:54:32
Speaker
And then another one is Jenna from Smart Her News and we have referenced her and her account multiple times on our podcast too. We appreciate her take on the news so much. She tries also to be very non-biased when she's reporting the news.
00:54:51
Speaker
And one thing I also like about Jenna is that she really is also very interested in the historical context of what has happened in the past or other factors contributing to any particular situation and she takes the time to develop those
00:55:07
Speaker
thoughts and ideas quite well. She has a podcast and they do have a website, Smarter News, and I still try to check in with her website as often as I can, especially when there are bigger things going on in the world.
00:55:23
Speaker
And then another Instagram account as well is at Sharon says, so, um, I don't follow her as closely. Um, but again, kind of like Jenna at smart her news, I really appreciate the fact that she cares about context, uh, for anything going on in the world. So she as well is a great source to get you started into looking a little bit more deeply into the events and the issues happening today.
00:55:51
Speaker
Um, she, I find she really discourages us from taking things at their immediate value. Um, and asks good questions and also reminds us all about the humanity behind the news. I do find that as well as Sharon says, so really tries to put the emphasis back on like, remember that we're all humans here.
00:56:17
Speaker
and that there is a humanity factor that we cannot forget, even though we're reading headlines on a screen. And a podcast that I absolutely love is the Honestly podcast with Barry Weiss. There's a lot Barry Weiss and I don't agree on, but I really respect her journalistic integrity. She asks great questions. She has great guests.
00:56:41
Speaker
And she is Jewish, so actually one of the things I was listening to was her episode from a couple months ago about the anniversary of the founding of Israel, which was interesting because they were actually talking about the current situation of internal strife between the right and left sides within Israel, which is actually contributing to some of the conversation going on right now about Netanyahu. And so it's actually good to kind of understand what was going on within Israel.
00:57:08
Speaker
leading up to this so that's a great episode and then of course she's doing daily coverage right now she's sharing some very very emotional and personal interviews with people who have children who've been taking hostage but she as as a jew she really feels like it's important to be a voice for those people right now so
00:57:24
Speaker
But her podcast in general all of the other topics as well the honestly podcast. I don't think I've ever listened to an episode That hasn't really given me a lot to think about it's really really well done Another podcast that was told to me by a friend this morning But I have never heard of it and you haven't either Michelle and I can't believe we haven't is called breaking points with Krystal and Saigar they are it sounds like one of them is left wing one of them is right wing and
00:57:52
Speaker
And they tackle all the heavy things. Like they both have a say. It says it's a fearless anti-establishment, um, YouTube and podcast channel at show. And so like, I'm looking at today's episode and I won't even read you the title because it's just like all the headlines and it goes on and it's a two hour episode. They have roughly like two hour episodes. It's like every day. So, um, that might be a really interesting one as well.
00:58:16
Speaker
Okay, and I have one to add to that print-wise. I shared it last spring as of what I'm loving, and I'm still loving it, but it is the 1440 Daily Digest. Yes, and it is like specifically trying to be a non-biased news source that is delivered right to your email inbox every morning with as unbiased as they can possibly be headlines.
00:58:43
Speaker
With, though, links attached to many of the headlines so that if you do want to go further into it, you can. But it's just enough, I find, for me, to inform me what's happening. That way I'm not forcibly taken on a deep dive.
00:59:01
Speaker
if I don't want to or need to go there. But I know what's going on. And so when someone mentions something that's happening in the world, more often than not, I can say like, oh, yes, I did come across that. Tell me more. Or I will even say, isn't that interesting or isn't that strange? I should look into this deeper. It's a great starting point, a great not so intense starting point for the news.
00:59:30
Speaker
I love tell me more. I think that's a great thing to say to someone. And Michelle, why is it called 1440? I thought this was so cool.
00:59:38
Speaker
Yes, there were a couple of reasons and I'm trying to think of them right off the top of my head. I think one of them was that it was the year the printing press was invented. Yes. Yes. So kind of playing off of that, like this is the new printing press era. And then the second one was there are 14, 1,440 minutes in a day and they wanted to make each one count.
Conclusion and Audience Engagement
01:00:05
Speaker
That's great.
01:00:09
Speaker
Okay, that's going to do it for us this week. If you want to get in touch and chat with us about our topic today, you can find us on our website, www.themodernlady1950.wordpress.com or leave us a comment on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at The Modern Lady Podcast.
01:00:28
Speaker
I'm Michelle Sacks and you can find me on Instagram at mmsacks. And I'm Lindsay Murray and you can find me on Instagram at Lindsay Homemaker. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great week and we will see you next time.