Chapter 1
Context, Culture and Cognition
Learning Objectives
- To understand the elements of effective multicultural reporting.
- To recognize that a journalist’s own culture may affect how he or she interprets and understands news events.
- To know the journalistic principles that support inclusive journalism.
Quick Links
Resources
- Want to know the mindset of a journalist? See “Stuff Journalists Like,” a website devoted to, well, stuff journalists like. It’s pithy, sometimes coarse, often right on the mark and consistently fresh.
Chapter 2
Habits of Thought
Learning Objectives
- To understand what habits of thought are and how they affect a journalist’s work.
- To be able to explain the difference between cognitive bias and media bias.
- To recognize how reflective practice in journalism promotes excellence.
Quick Links
Resources
To better understand the difference between
cognitive bias, which describes errors or distortions in everyday thinking processes, and
media bias, which is an ideological slant in news reporting, see these sites:
Chapter 3
Encountering the News
Learning Objectives
- To understand how schemas work and how they can affect journalists.
- To be able to define the perseverance effect and the self-fulfilling prophecy.
- To learn techniques to counter the potentially negative impacts of schemas on news stories.
Quick Links
Resources
- Scholarly article about how people initially accept information and then think about whether to accept or reject the information as true. By Daniel Gilbert, How Mental Systems Believe, American Psychologist, 1991.
Chapter 4
Story Without Stereotype
Learning Objectives
- To be able to define stereotypes and list four of their attributes.
- To understand the potential influence of stereotypes on news reporting, including how sources are influenced by stereotypes.
- To know how to apply techniques to control the use of stereotypes in journalism.
Quick Links
Resources
Chapter 5
Understanding Culture, Understanding Sources
Learning Objectives
- To be able to define culture, cultural beliefs, values and norms.
- To understand the influence of standpoint on journalism.
- To recognize how the concept of ingroups and outgroups applies to sources and reporting.
- To learn strategies for reporting across cultural borders.
Quick Links
Resources
Chapter 6
Training the Reporter’s Eye
Learning Objectives
- To understand what people tend to notice.
- To recognize that the focus of a journalist’s attention influences and reinforces news values and frames.
- To learn techniques that can fill gaps in observation and attention.
Quick Links
Resources
Chapter 7
Critical Decisions Before Deadline
Learning Objectives
- To define and identify confirmation bias.
- To understand how confirmation bias and deadline pressure affect the information-gathering process.
- To be aware of biases in judgments that can affect thinking.
- To recognize how accountability may improve accuracy.
Quick Links
Resources
Chapter 8
The Power of Words and Tone
Learning Objectives
- To understand the significance of speaker, audience and context on the meaning of words.
- To recognize four problematic areas of word choice: Otherness words, politicized words, judgment words and code words.
- To learn three tools to become more attuned to word choice and tone: The Blab Test, challenging sources and the Language Self-Check.
Quick Links
Resources
Chapter 9
Attribution and Editing Without Bias
Learning Objectives
- To learn to edit stories for relevant anecdotes and population-based data.
- To understand how to evaluate news accounts for incomplete explanations for causes of people’s behavior.
- To self-assess two qualities of thinking style that may affect your journalism.
Quick Links
Resources
Chapter 10
Journalism and Reflective Practice
Learning Objectives
- To understand what debiasing is.
- To know the three categories of debiasing.
- To know at least five strategies for debiasing.
Quick Links
Resources
- Scholarly article on debiasing techniques and their efficacy: "Giving Debiasing Away: Can Psychological Research on Correcting Cognitive Errors Promote Human Welfare?" In Perspectives on Psychological Science 4(4) (2009), p. 390.
- For more reading on how memory, attention, rules and social perceptions influence our decisions: A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen, by James G. March and Chip Heath (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994).