- [Announcer] "Flatland in Focus" is brought to you in part through the generous support of AARP, the Health Forward Foundation, and RSM.

- Hi, I'm D. Rashaan Gilmore.

Welcome to "Flatland in Focus."

In a world where our information is at our fingertips, but fake news can spread faster than the truth, separating fact from fiction has never been more challenging or necessary.

And so tonight, we'll talk about how to navigate the murky waters of misinformation.

(upbeat music) With so many important issues and breaking stories flooding our news feeds, it can be overwhelming to try to pinpoint what exactly is true, what is false, and what lies somewhere in between.

As another election year comes into view, it's more important than ever to be aware of what messaging we are surrounded by so that we can be informed as voters, and hold elected officials accountable to the issues that we care about.

Recently, "Flatland" worked with our friends over at American Public Square to host an event on media literacy where we invited area high school students to come together to research and get to the heart of some of these very thorny issues.

Let's take a look at some of the lessons that they learned that day.

This is "Flatland In Focus," where today's dialogue shapes tomorrow's decisions.

Let's begin.

- We know that resources for civic education in K-12 schools has just fallen off a cliff, but one slice of civics that we have seen especially deteriorate in the last couple of decades is civic engagement.

One necessary aspect is that young people are simply informed.

This generation, they're never gonna face the problem of too little information.

It's just the opposite.

The challenge they have is how do they discern what information they can trust and what information is reliable, especially when they're thinking about how they engage civically, or how they vote, or what to expect from elected leaders, whether it's the school board or the president.

They pick a topic either in the world, in the nation, in our state, in our city, and then we guide them as they design a community program around that topic.

- Within those topics, we like came to consensus on like, which are the most like popular.

We chose gun violence for ours.

- Our top three was separation of church and state, gun violence, and reversal of affirmative action.

- You see common themes, healthcare, abortion, mental health, race, guns and gun violence, which is where they ultimately landed this year.

- [Student] So I think like possession laws, control, safety.

- Yeah.

Possession is really interesting.

- For gun concealing, do we need like, permits to carry for Kansas?

- [Tricia] Part of that workday, Think Like a Journalist, Act Like a Fact Checker, the goal was to narrow their topic.

- I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about the journalistic process.

If you understand how it works more, you can understand how news is produced more, you become more media literate, and also you all have such an important role, especially in the day of constant sharing.

My goal today is to help you be more informed with the information that you're sharing to make sure that what we're sharing is accurate factual news.

The first thing is to find the story.

Pay attention to the things that are going on around you, see what's interesting about it, then you have to talk to the right people, figure out what's important about the story, get the information, and then you have to make it understandable and digestible to your audience.

Question everything, be aware of change, or things that are not changing 'cause that can also be newsworthy, and then be aware of how it's impacting people.

Who's impacted?

Where is it happening?

When is this happening?

When did it start happening?

Why?

How?

This is something that's been reported on a lot.

So you could go to the Kansas City Star, KCUR, or some of the big media outlets that are local here, and you could see what they've written about, and you'll probably get most of your questions answered.

So what are the benefits of going to a trusted news outlet?

It lowers the cost of information, the time that it takes for you to go out and do all that gathering, the journalist has already done and it's presented to you.

So that's a huge benefit.

- Social media, I feel like it's a every single day thing.

I like that it's an easy and quick learning experience.

- I trust like, CNN.

I know that they generally get like, a lot of their information from well-known sources and well-trusted sources.

- I mean, if I see something that an influencer is saying, I'll definitely take it into account, and like if it's something that I'm like, whoa, I had no idea about this, I go and I like do some other research, or I'll talk to people who I know like, know that this is going on, but it's definitely like, just a first source.

It's not like my end all be all of getting my news.

- I'm looking at this article on NPR in Kansas City, and it was published like recently, like, in August.

It'll tell you about how lax, like, the gun laws are in Kansas, and then it goes into like, I feel like, this could be a good website.

- There's so many like things that go on that sometimes people do use guns for protection, but then where's that like, line?

- Like, you can't seem to look at another country with a different culture, a different way of believing things, and a different set of laws, and try to like, compare it to America.

- So much great background information by always checking what had been done prior.

It gives you context for historical reference.

- It's kind of difficult to find the nitty-gritty stuff when there's so much like, noise around, like, breaking news.

This is what's happening, and it's hard to find the in between.

Like, what is fact?

Like, the war in Palestine and Israel, like, news journalists that are there, like what they're actually seeing, what they're experiencing instead of like, the game of telephone, like, what's coming back to us?

- We need to know what is happening and what's going on, and then we also need to know how to laterally read through things to make sure that we have a good understanding before we re-share it with whoever.

- There was like a place called Huff Post, and I was like, "What's this?"

And then I looked it up and it was like, oh, not very good, and it was in like 2011.

I was like, "Okay, I probably shouldn't use this."

- Buzzfeed articles, again, not using that.

(students laughing) (students chattering) - We took a misinformation and disinformation quiz during class one time, and I realized that it is so hard to discern like different headlines, and like, understand what is misinformation and disinformation just by reading the headlines.

Like, you have to look deeper into it.

- My grandparents and parents are like, I saw it on Facebook so it has to be true.

So we kinda do the same thing with like TikTok and Instagram.

But now that it's being taught in the curriculum, like the media literacy and the importance of finding the truth rather than bias, we can teach them more media, they can teach us more about life.

- Big tech and social media connects us around the world.

There's a lot of independent journalists, there's a lot of just citizens who are able to report on really important topics around the world because we have this resource and keep us informed.

Media literacy should be something that outside organizations engaged in supporting educators should be involved in to create a more informed citizenry so we can work better together.

- Older generations assume that like, with our access to the media, that's all we take in, and that we're not reading books, we're not talking to adults, we're not checking our sources, and I think it's really important to remind them that like, we are responsible people, and we are responsible about our place in the world.

- All right, welcome back to the studio.

Our guest tonight are Dr. Teri Finneman, KU professor and publisher of The Eudora Times, Ashley Muddiman, associate professor from the KU Department of Communication Studies, and Antonia Leighton, Belton High School student who participated in our media literacy workshop, and our very own Cami Koons, who is our rural reporter here at "Flatland," and who helped facilitate the workshop with American Public Square.

Okay, so Cami, I'm gonna start with you.

Can you tell us a little bit about the main points you wanted to get across to the public in your presentation at the media literacy event?

- Yeah, the presentation that I gave was called, Think Like a Journalist, Act Like a Fact Checker.

And so the whole idea with that was not necessarily to, you know, instill the next generation of journalists, although that'd be great, but the idea was that every day, we're coming across so much information be that on social media, from talking to friends and family, and then we're usually sharing that back out some way.

So I just wanted to give folks the tools to better analyze and evaluate that information that we're taking in, and then be more informed as we share that back out.

They have a lot of these ideas in their heads already, you know, they're aware of the algorithms, and the effect that that has on their feeds, and so I think they appreciated having a chance to, you know, take that a step further, and yeah, think about it in terms of their role that they play in the media landscape.

- But it makes me want to ask you, Antonia, a student from Belton, can you tell us a little bit about the topic that your group really focused in on, and what helpful tips came from that that might be useful for others?

- Yeah, we learned a lot about gun violence online, and we did a lot of fact checking.

Thanks to the journalists, we were like, able to fact check everything we did.

So they talked to us about not believing everything we did on social media regarding like, TikTokers maybe that you might look at, like you need to fact check, look at both sides, which is something that I learned from Cam's presentation.

It was actually great because a lot of us got to talking immediately afterwards, which allowed us to learn more about the fact checking, which in high school I don't feel like they teach a lot about it.

- So how well do you feel that you and your friends at school, your peers, how well do you feel that you all actually navigate this misinformation landscape?

And do you feel like you can identify it now better when you see it?

- Yeah, I feel like before that presentation, I didn't know anything about fact checking, or like, realizing what was misinformation or not.

But now that I took that and I saw that presentation, and I shared it with my friends 'cause I grabbed some bulletin boards that they gave us, I passed them out during our classes, like political science, college government, things like that, and we learned fact checking much more, and now we can like do projects that we make sure that it's just the truth and not misinformation.

- Well, I hope for our viewing audience at home, you can appreciate as I do right now, just the excitement that I see and feel emanating off of you about making sure that you can really understand that what you see may or may not be relevant or accurate news and information.

And so it makes me wanna ask you, Dr. Finneman, I mean, can you help us understand the concept of media literacy?

It sounds very esoteric, but what is it, and how do we apply its tools and principles to our day-to-day lives?

I mean, we have so much coming at us all the time, how do we do it?

- Well, I mean, the simplest way to define media literacy would be knowing which information is credible, and which isn't.

I mean, that's really the simplest way to sum it up.

At the University of Kansas, we actually have an entire course that is built on training students to recognize what information is credible and which isn't, and there's a series of six to eight steps that people can take.

And the problem is, is that most people when they're scrolling through social are very casual, and they don't wanna take that much time to have to go through each of these six to eight steps.

But we're trying to teach our students, our future journalists to know these things so that they're built automatically into their minds.

- Okay, so that's for future journalists, which is great because they're the ones that we're gonna be turning to.

But how does the average person do it?

- It's the same thing, it's the same thing, the same six to eight steps that real people can use, which is, you know, first of all, look to see who the publisher is.

Is there an about us section on the website?

If there's not, that's a first red flag.

A second red flag is, is there contact information?

Can you actually get ahold of the person that created this information on that website?

Is there a byline or the name of somebody tied to that content who is, you know, acknowledging that they wrote it?

Are there human sources who were talked to for this story?

How is the grammar?

How is the spelling?

What are the kind of ads on the page?

Are they very junky-looking ads?

What kind of images are on the page?

So all of these things combined together can help people recognize fake information.

- And are there what you would consider truly reliable information sources?

I think that's a lot of what happens with most of us in the public.

We wanna just go to that one space, or one or two places that we know, you know, whatever the proverbial Walter Cronkite, or whatever it is for the era that we trust, how do we identify even among those six steps that you just outlined, who those main groups are?

Can we rely on some of these legacy groups like we used to?

- Yes, absolutely you can.

That's one of the thing, I'm glad you mentioned Walter Cronkite because I'm a journalism historian, and so every semester, my students do oral histories with their grandparents and capture their media memories, and Walter Cronkite always comes up, and there's this collective memory built up that this was an era when journalism was what it should have been, right?

And the thing that's interesting is that can still apply today, right?

I mean, you still, back then, it was, you had the three network TV channels, and you had your local paper.

People still have those options today, and that's what I would encourage them to use.

- So that begs the question for me, Ashley, in your experience in research, what impact does misinformation have on public discourse, and how can we in public opinion for that matter too, and how do we sort of maneuver through those waters as well?

- It actually has maybe less of an effect than what people think it does, particularly online.

Somebody, for instance, who wants to get a vaccine is probably not going to change their minds because they see one piece of information.

What the problem is, is when all of the pieces of their information environment start amplifying that information.

So if they see the information from their friends and family on social media, and then they also see it if it's amplified on cable news stations, and then it's amplified by politicians, that's when it gets to be a major problem.

So misinformation, we need to be concerned, we need to be paying attention to it, but it has a reinforcing effect, and the most concerning impacts come when it becomes amplified in by people, and news sites, and politicians who have a really large audience.

- What is the role of civility in all of this, and is that something we should expect?

As consumers of news and information in this country, it seems like that is something that is often absent and sometimes purposely so.

- Yeah, I get concerned most when people who have power, so particularly again, politicians, are attacking individuals, or are using incivility to go after people, especially when we think of our digital environment.

If a presidential candidate attacks an individual person, then all of their followers start doing the same thing, and that can actually shut down speech, it can distract from accurate information, and so that is really problematic for me.

Sometimes I think, you know, a protest might use some uncivil language, and that doesn't bother me quite as much.

But when people in power are using it to enforce their own beliefs and shut down discourse from people who don't have it, it can change who even wants to participate in public, and that is really concerning.

- And that's really sort of the heart of the question for me, and it makes me feel like that there are sources of information that we have gone to, that we've relied upon, there are people that we thought we could count on to be civil, and to bring us the full truth, and now it just sort of, and again, I don't wanna paint with such a broad brush stroke, but I'm a consumer of news and information just like everybody else.

And I don't know about you, Antonia, but I sometimes have a hard time discerning when something is accurate, if it's reliable, if it's credible, and so I'm wondering if this experience has changed how you view and consume media, and do you think it will have any impact on your peers?

- Yeah, I feel like it did have an impact on me.

Before, I would just look on TikTok, Instagram, like any type of social media.

Like, there are TikTokers that talk about politics, but it's always one sided.

There's not like the two sides to a story.

So now that I know more about false information or trying to build up your own opinion, you have to look at two sides.

Also as well as checking like, how would I say this?

You have to look at what politicians say, not only what you get from the media.

And I feel like it did affect my peers as well 'cause we talked about it in class every single time now before talking anything related to politics.

- Do you feel like people from other generations, older folks, view you and your generation as not really being attuned, not really caring, not really knowing how to sort through misinformation, and fake news and alternative facts, and all of these things and they sort of dismiss it with, "Oh, you know, you're just getting all your news off of TikTok or Instagram."

Is that fair in your view?

- I feel like it's not fair.

Like, I would say that adults need to have an open view now.

Like, this is a different generation.

We're coming to change things in the United States, as well, as well as politics maybe.

So the way we view news is totally different the way they view it.

- How do you view it?

How do you view news?

Is it just opinion or is it fact, do you feel?

- I feel like it's between both.

Like, there isn't a way for me to know the truth, and I will always think that news sugar coat some of the things that are happening in the United States.

- So Cami, I've gotta bring it home to us who are in media, but what is the responsibility that we have to the public, and not just in terms of making sure we get the story and information right, but when we get it wrong, to remedy that?

How does that work?

- Sure, I mean, obviously always making corrections and being transparent about that.

I think transparency on the process as well.

With my beat specifically going out to a lot of rural communities, a lot of them are in news deserts, or they don't have a lot of local papers around people reporting there.

So part of my job is explaining to them the process of news, here's what I'm doing, here's why I'm asking these questions, here's how I plan to use your responses, you know, to some degree.

Just kind of being transparent on the process, and encouraging people I think to ask questions of us, ask questions of what you're consuming, you know, be critical, ask those questions.

Who's publishing this?

Who's the reporter?

Where does it come from and why?

- Cami mentioned news deserts, and The Eudora Times has been referred to as a news desert publication.

Can you speak to what might be the very specific definition, the meaning or interpretations of that term, and how The Eudora Times, in particular, and other publications who may be feeling a similar need, do that?

- Yeah, well, there's a lot of definitions and a lot of discrepancies with what the definition is, but I mean, the simplest way to sum it up would be a community or population that is lacking in access to local news.

So for Eudora, for example, they didn't have a newspaper for a decade.

They had no local news covering them and what was happening in that town, and so we stepped up at the University of Kansas and helped create a newspaper for this community.

- So you didn't have enough on your plate between all of your courses and all the things you're doing, you started a newspaper in conjunction with the university for this particular community.

And is that a common model that you see where colleges or universities are stepping in with their journalism schools to fill those voids?

- Yeah, so I've hosted a national News Desert U conference for people in academia from across the country to learn more how to start these.

There's a growing number of them, I think there's over a hundred universities now that are trying to fill local news gaps in some way.

Just this morning, Boston University called me looking for advice on how to start their own.

So you're really starting to see this model take off.

- And apparently, here in our area at The Eudora Times, I mean, we are on the cutting edge, the vanguard of that, which is really, really very exciting.

Ashley, I have to ask you what is probably one of the tougher questions for the panel today.

What's at risk for this country if we don't do a better job of really understanding what is and isn't news?

- Again, fantastic question, and it is a tough one so I'll do my best.

But I think that some of the problems that we're seeing today come out of the fact that we've had decreasing trust in institutions in this country for several decades.

Yeah, and media institutions are part of that, and just our trust in each other, and if we can't figure out what information we can trust, which institutions we can trust, and which neighbors we can trust, it's really difficult, if not impossible to solve the problems that are facing our cities, and communities, and our country, but even more locally than that.

And so if we are starting from a basis that we don't trust each other, and we don't trust the facts that each other hold, we're not going to be able to solve the major problems that are facing our communities, and so it's a very, very large challenge.

- I'm gonna be unfair to you again, and I apologize.

I'm gonna push a little bit further, and into the arena of our politics right now, what do you feel is at risk in that arena?

Because just as Antonia said, I mean, you have these politicians sometimes who are out there, they're sharing this information, and people either if you like them, you believe them and you don't go any further than that, right?

2024 is a major election year.

There's all this cross messaging every which way.

What happens if you don't understand how to navigate through this very, very weird and problem strewn media landscape?

- Again, I'm very concerned about this question.

I think we saw a taste of what can happen on January 6th, 2021.

Even if most of the people in this country believed that the election was not stolen, there was a substantial group that showed up that stopped the election count for a bit, and these kinds of things I'm concerned about them happening again in the fall.

- Yeah, because that's really interesting because we talk a lot about younger people not being able to decipher through misinformation, but that wasn't exactly a high school band group up there at the capitol that day.

So really, for older folks who think that they know news from nonsense, how are they supposed to, you know, sort of find a way to be mindful about this?

- Yeah, and actually several studies even before this happened, suggested that older individuals are more likely to share misinformation online than younger folks, so- - You heard it here first, folks.

- Yeah, there's several studies finding the same thing, and they need to be aware of all of the tips that they've heard so far today.

And also, like you mentioned, there's an in-group mentality that if something aligns with what people already think, it's easier to believe.

- The confirmation bias.

- Exactly, exactly, and so finding those sources like legacy news organizations that might push people out of that can be really helpful, and just remembering that not everything that you agree with is always true.

So being critical thinkers about that as well.

- Is journalism, the so-called Fourth Estate, is it prepared to do the work it needs to do to sort of be the guardian of news and information?

- Yeah, I mean, I think journalism will always be here, or people out there reporting and sharing quality information.

I think definitely look towards your local publications who are on the ground, who are a part of those communities, and really are, you know, doing the work to tell those stories accurately always.

Not that other media outlets aren't, but especially local ones, I think.

- Just a quick question for you, not to put you on the spot, but has this inspired you to maybe pursue a career in media and accurate information reporting?

- Well, actually, yeah.

I've always thought about journalism 'cause I like writing a lot, I like finding new things, discovering new stuff that might be happening, covering the truth on certain things.

So yeah, I think this will decide my future.

- Well, I absolutely look forward to seeing or reading your work one day.

That's where we wrap up today's conversation for this episode of "Flatland In Focus."

You've been hearing from KU professor and publisher of The Eudora Times, Dr. Teri Finneman, Ashley Muddiman, associate professor for the KU Department of Communication Studies, Belton High School student Antonia Leighton, and my friend and colleague, Cami Koons, rural affairs Reporter here at "Flatland" in Kansas City PBS.

So listen folks, in an age where information is omnipresent and malleable, our collective responsibility is to discern, question, and understand what is out there and what we are responsible for sharing with our friends in the broader world.

So remember, in the flatland of information, perspective is key, and clarity is power.

You can find more information and reporting on media literacy at flatlandshow.org, and join our livestream flatland follow-up on Instagram.

I'm D. Rashaan Gilmore.

This has been "Flatland In Focus," and as always, thank you for the pleasure of your time.

- [Announcer] "Flatland in Focus" is brought to you in part through the generous support of AARP, the Health Forward Foundation, and RSM.