A conversation with Yonty Friesem about News Literacy Week. Friesem is an associate professor in the School of Communication and Culture and a leading international expert on media literacy.
Transcript:
0:08: Welcome back to the Chronicle Chronversations.
0:11: I’m your host, Aaron Guzman.
0:13: This week on Chronversations, co-founder of the Illinois Media Literacy Coalition, Yonty Friesem, shares insight on the importance of media literacy during a new presidency.
0:24: Friesem provides a brief history of the creation of News Literacy Week as well as Media Literacy Week.
0:31: I mean, misinformation, disinformation, malformation always existed.
0:35: I just was talking to my students the other day that you go back to Benjamin Franklin and others even before that, that that existed. But the way that social media is accelerating, the fact that there’s much more information that is not reliable concerns a lot of people and that’s where an organization called the News Literacy Project.
0:57: Based in DC, founded by an LA reporter, created the News Literacy Week 5 years ago, 6 years ago, because they saw the success of the Media literacy Week that has been established for the last 11 years.
1:11: So that’s kind of the why it’s happening and kind of very brief history.
1:16: Freesome also talks about the importance of deregulation in mass media during a new presidency and how it impacts its consumers.
1:23: It’s unbelievable that it’s only 2.5 weeks with the amount of information that is happening.
1:29: So what’s going on is that because of the President and in his inauguration, you could see all the heads of the big tech companies there, they are supporting him not because they love him, just because they know that he supports deregulation.
1:44: So while the Biden administration created some, minimal regulation that are benefiting the public and not the individual companies here, they want to gain even more power than they have already by deregulating and not having, and that’s why Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are taking out something that was very helpful for people to see that the platform was saying this is untrue, that is shared, so that would help people stop for a second and not spreading it because it would make them think.
2:17: So now that has been like taking out and a lot of people are outraged by it because it was not the solution, but it was helpful.
2:27: They also highlight the importance of consuming media from more than one source and explain how we can learn more about media literacy on campus and use this to our advantage.
2:37: So if you’re consuming information, you need not just to consume from one source.
2:42: That’s the big thing.
2:43: Like, and again, this is a journalistic practice, right?
2:46: You triangulate, you, you look at different, because you cannot rely that one source will give you the whole reality because they don’t.
2:53: So, yes, I do, you know, listen to The Washington Post, New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, even Fox News, but I’m triangulating to see what is eventually the reality because each one has their own perspective and they’re giving a spin on factual reporting.
3:10: I’m proud to be in the new School of Communication and Culture that is offering now a class that is called media literacy and it’s gonna be part of the core and it’s gonna be basically available and it’s a DEI course so it’s gonna be available and offered every semester and it’s a big class so students can come and join it.
3:32: So that’s like one thing, for example, that we’re doing.
3:34: That’s all for this week.
3:36: Make sure to stay up to date with Campus and Metro news at columbiachronicle.com and sign up for our newsletter at columbiaCchronicle.com/newsletter.
3:45: Don’t forget to check out our Three C’s podcast where we tell you about the three biggest things you need to know at Columbia for the week.
3:51: I’m Aaron Guzman, thanks for listening.
Copy edited by Matt Brady
