The 21st century has seen nothing less than a media revolution, with traditional news sources - daily newspapers, broadcast networks and newsweeklies - threatened with unprecedented competition from the internet and social media. Inconvenient truths are being attacked as “fake news.” And the next presidential election is just months away!

How did we get into this mess? Thanks to the internet, anyone can be a publisher or broadcaster, offering “alternative facts” and outlandish conspiracy theories to receptive audiences. Whether you’re a hard-core news junkie or a casual follower of current events, chances are you’re feeling overwhelmed.

In this course we will learn how to sharpen our critical reading skills to distinguish between “noise” and “news,” facts and lies. Through reading a variety of sources and discussing them in class, we will analyze how to assess accuracy and bias in news articles and to try to determine whether there even is such a thing as an “unbiased” news source. We will also examine the role of “gatekeepers,” those who decide what is news, whether they are editors at the Washington Post or Breitbart. There will be online reading materials for this course.