This section focuses on information produced by news outlets. These include:
News outlets employ professional journalists to report on current events. These journalists typically have a degree and/or training in the journalism field, and they abide by a journalism code of ethics.
In addition to professional journalists, many news outlets hire commentators and columnists who may be experts in a certain field. See the Opinion section below for more about this type of article.
| News Article | An article written to inform readers about recent events. The author reports essential information (who/what/where/when/why/how). |
|---|---|
| News Analysis | An article written to inform readers about recent events. The author reports and attempts to deepen understanding of recent events—for example, by providing background information and other kinds of additional context. |
| Feature Article |
Compared with news articles, feature articles are often more creative or exploratory and less focused on efficient delivery of essential information. Other types of news content that are generally categorized as “feature” writing include how-to-do-it articles (for example, how to shop for a new phone) and profiles (for example, an article about a movie actor starring in a recently-released film). |
| Editorial | An unsigned opinion piece that represents the views of the news organization’s editorial staff. |
|---|---|
| Opinion Piece | An opinion article by a staff columnist or guest columnist. (If a guest columnist, the writer’s credentials will almost always be identified.) |
| Review | An evaluation of a book, movie, album, live performance, etc. |
News or Opinion? by Christine Photinos is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
The author (or anchor/host, in the case of tv and radio) is typically a professional journalist hired by the news outlet to report on current events. These journalists typically have a degree and/or training in the journalism field, and they abide by a journalism code of ethics.
Opinion pieces may be written by journalists, but they can also be written by other writers known for their expertise, and, often, for holding strong viewpoints. Opinion pieces/shows often include contributions from guests, as well.
Occasionally, news articles are posted without a byline (author credit). This is more common with very short articles. If you have a long, in-depth piece and you can't determine the author, that is a potential red flag--do a little digging and verify the information in a different news outlet.
Bias in news gets a lot of attention. While journalists ideally strive to be impartial, it is almost impossible to be truly neutral. Newsrooms make choices all the time, even when they decide which stories to cover. Some news outlets are known for covering the news from a particular perspective (often political), while others are considered to be more impartial.
Some questions to ask:
In the past, people mostly got their news by reading print newspapers, watching television broadcasts, and listening to the radio. While all those activities are still common, many of us now get news primarily online. Here are four ways to get news online:
News articles often appear in web search results. Google even has a dedicated news search that can be a great way to look specifically for news articles. As with any other web search, you'll read the article by clicking a link in your search results that takes you to the news agency's website. Some news outlets make all articles freely available online, while some have paywalls. You may have to register or subscribe to read most (or any) articles.
You can go straight to the website of a news outlet to browse current, and often past, articles. Most sites will allow you to browse headlines and search for specific articles, but many require subscriptions to read most articles. For example, Charleston's main newspaper, the Post & Courier, only allows non-subscribers to read a few articles (but keep reading to learn how to access P&C through the library!).
The New York Times is another paper that limits access for non-subscribers, but CofC Libraries provides web access for College of Charleston students, faculty, and staff. As a CofC student, you can get a free subscription to the NYT website if you register through the library.
To access The New York Times, College of Charleston students, faculty, and staff must create an account by clicking the link above, searching for and selecting "College of Charleston" from the list, clicking "Create Account" and completing the registration using their CofC email address, and finally, verifying their accounts through the confirmation email sent by The New York Times. Once registered and verified, College of Charleston students, faculty, and staff can access The New York Times (NYTimes.com), including the archives (dating back to 1851), podcasts, newsletters, videos, and more. The College of Charleston's subscription does not include access to add-ons like The Athletic or Games. Faculty and staff will need to re-verify their account annually.
Some library databases include news sources, so that you can access articles without having to subscribe to many different individual sites. For example, Post and Courier articles are available in a database called Access World News. The look and feel is a little different from using the P&C website, but all of the articles are available for you to read. Access World News contains articles from hundreds of publications around the world, and we have several other news databases, as well.
It is very common to see news articles shared on social media, and creators of disinformation ("fake news") increasingly use social media to make their content go viral. Before reading something shared by a friend, stop and figure out the source of the article. Investigate the source using the lateral reading strategies from Module 5 if it seems at all suspicious.
