No, we sure didn't learn how to understand the news in school

Lori Stem 

loristemou@gmail.com (ls603219@ohio.edu)

Yes, even you have biases (and so do I)

How are our vulnerabilities exploited? How many people understand biases? We all have biases whether we want to accept them or not. 

Cognitive biases affect how we take in and process information. It's simply how our brains work. Marketers, advertisers, politicians, "the media" - they all know what our biases are and how to use them to their advantage. 

Things we did NOT learn in school

It's amazing that we all think we are taught critical thinking skills in school. Sure, we learned math, read some poetry, and played with chemical reactions in the lab. Why didn't we learn how our brains process information? 

How different this world could be if we were taught about cognitive bias to protect ourselves. We would have learned tools to help us think critically and decipher news from opinions, news from propaganda, and news from fake stories. 

Kovach and Rosenstiel wrote in their book The Elements of Journalism, "...our educational system expects students to graduate high school and college fluent in concepts of algebra, geometry, foreign language, and literature. Yet there is little serious demand or coherent effort to teach young citizens to comprehend what we think should be considered as the literature of civic life - the news."

Join the enemy? Never!

No one wants to think they aren't smart, are wrong, can't think for themselves, are siding with "them". Many people get suckered into only reading or watching what they want to believe or already believe.

This is where confirmation bias gets us, and this article helps break that down. 

We cherry-pick information that supports our stance, and what our tribe stands for, and we surely don't want them to think we are moving towards believing the "enemy". 

We definitely don't want to do the hard task of weighing out evidence that doesn't support our beliefs. 

We read or watch opinions with limited understanding this is not the actual news. Or if we do recognize this, we don't care. We are happy! Someone on our side agrees with us, and this only emboldens us to double down on our beliefs. 

Fear is a motivator for action

Credit: Getty Images

I was at a friend's house last weekend. She told me that she watched a show on one of our local tv stations. They air a 30-minute program before the late morning news that highlights local restaurants, boutiques, attractions, and so forth. The hosts on this show are the local news anchors.

The channel is making money from these paid advertisements (yes, it's noted but how many people pay attention to that?), and we get to learn about cool places and build the desire to support local businesses. 

It's a win-win, right? Not so fast. 

My friend then went on to tell me she was really scared of what she heard from a financial advisor who was on. I asked her what she meant.

She replied, "He talked about all of the horrible things that are coming our way. No water, no food, civil war, total chaos! He even said he wouldn't be surprised if at some point we didn't have the freedom to access our own money at our banks!" 

Insert authority bias. Read about the Milgram Shock experiment, a famous study on authority bias.

If my friend saw this on tv, on a station she trusted, by a big-time financial advisor who owned his own company, it must be true! She better look into his services. Oh boy. Time to have a chat.

Make that connection (even if you feel you have nothing in common)

I wanted my friend to feel comfortable casually talking about this. I told her it was understandable to feel scared. After all, we CAN look around us and have plenty to be scared from!

She nodded her head in agreement. I explained the financial advisor was preying on people. He was deceptive and used fear tactics to manipulate people into thinking they won't be financially secure and he can help! Just use his services, of course!

She fell for his tactics hook, line, and sinker. How many other people did too? How many followed through and hired him?

We talked about some of the more common cognitive biases that affect how we take in information. 

I broke some of the biases down for her, in simple ways to digest, using examples that made sense to her personally. I wanted her to have some tools to begin to think critically about what she sees and hears. 

She needed to be aware. "The media" versus sound journalism. The news versus opinions, the news versus propaganda, the news versus fake stories. 

Luckily, because I made a connection and agreed it's ok to feel scared, she was willing to listen and talk. Let's hope it opened her eyes even just a little.

Let's work together to be aware!

Awareness is key. The more we understand how our brains process information, the more we can use critical thinking skills to decipher what is actual news versus all of the noise.

The more we make connections, the more we can talk openly about things. The more we can talk openly about things, the more we can show others what it means to support sound journalism.

We all have a part to play in fighting back against "fake news" and being taken advantage of. Let's fight for our democracy!

What are ways that you have talked about our cognitive biases with family, friends, or strangers? Feel free to drop me a comment! Until next time...