Two-way street: Establishing a media literate society

Along with investments in the education and journalism industry, there is still work to do, especially for publications, to evaluate their work as responsible journalists. 

Metea Valley’s Yearbook Adviser, Kristen DiGiorgio-Kadich, became immersed with the idea of media literacy in her undergraduate years and her time advising Broadcast and Newspaper before Yearbook. Through her time practicing her craft, she has come to her beliefs of the journalism industry. 

“I truly, in my heart of hearts, think that no journalist ever goes into journalism to create controversy or fake news,” DiGiorgio-Kadich said. “They truly go into it to seek truth and report it, and, somewhere along the lines, these big media conglomerates get more focused on ratings than they do reporting.”

Any effort to provide journalists the platform to “seek the truth and report it” comes at a standard of ethical practices. The standard guidelines are included in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

“I think if we look back, you know, in our publications, we have specific policies that we write,” DiGiorgio-Kadich said. “And we uphold our staff to those policies. I think the media outlets need to do a better job examining their policies and holding up their end of the bargain with their responsibility with responsible, ethical, and truthful journalism.”

The lessons from yellow journalism and the creation of ethical guidelines are not the sole solutions to curing the United State’s divisiveness in social, political, and ethical issues. With the growing popularity of self-proclaimed journalists online, there is a diminishing understanding of what makes up a professional journalist and the journalistic process. That is the reason why media illiteracy exists, why confirmation bias exists, and why a divided nation exists. 

“[Being media literate] is on us to make sure that we’re getting to the bottom of things and putting out information that’s true,” Smith said. “We just have to stop being so lazy and so willing to accept things just because it’s what we want to hear, and to ask ourselves hard questions; because if we can do that, then that solves 99% of the problem.”