August 25, 2025 • 58 mins
Alice Sheehan from AllSides joins us to discuss media literacy and the importance of understanding diverse perspectives in our fragmented media landscape. AllSides provides balanced news by showing how left, center, and right-leaning sources cover the same stories, helping readers recognize patterns in media bias while developing critical thinking skills.
• AllSides uses a patented technology and multi-partisan team to provide balanced news coverage
• Their media bias ratings examine 16 different types of bias using expert panels and blind surveys
• Seeking multiple perspectives helps clarify your own thinking by understanding why others disagree
• Teachers can use AllSides for current events lessons without appearing partisan
• AllSides recently released classroom dialogue guides with Harvard Graduate School of Education
• Seeing how different media outlets cover the same story reveals how bias shapes narrative
• The X Influencer Bias Chart helps users diversify their social media feeds with different perspectives
• Media literacy involves recognizing that bias exists in all sources, not eliminating it
• Creating healthy information habits means balancing news consumption with offline activities
AllSides is hosting a journalism contest for students to create AllSides-style headline roundups, with three winners receiving $500 and potential publication on their site.
Media bias ratings:
https://www.allsides.com/media-bias
X Influencer chart:
https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/x-bias-chart
Classroom dialogue guides:
https://mismatch.org/dialogue-in-the-classroom/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Thank you everybody again for joining us on the
Arizona Civics Podcast.
We have already had threeamazing episodes and I'm really
excited for this fourth episodebecause talking about media
literacy, talking about how todo things in a way that is
nonpartisan, it gets yourstudents to think is really
important.
And when I taught AP governmentand politics for all my AP
(00:25):
teachers out there we do have a,you know, lessons we have to do
on the media and I alwaysutilized all sides because it
was a nice thing for me to putup.
We could see how differentthings were reported in the left
media, the right media, thecenter, and I know a lot of you
have probably utilized the bigspreadsheet that has all of the
(00:50):
media and where they kind of fiton the spectrum.
So I was very excited whentoday's guests reached out,
wanted to talk because medialiteracy is so important,
especially in this age ofconstant online activity.
So I'd love to introduce ourguest today, alice Sheehan from
Allsides.
Alice, can you tell a littlebit about yourself but then also
(01:13):
talk about what is Allsides andwhy is media literacy so
important?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Absolutely, and thank you for having me, Liz, I'm
really excited to be here.
I, you know, I found All Sidesof Myself in 2020.
And I was trying I kind of Iusually read sort of New York
Times and Denver Post.
I'm in Denver, Colorado, and Igot the sense that I wasn't
(01:39):
really getting the whole storyfrom the New York Times.
So then I started especially myfamily's in Missouri, and they
were saying very differentthings from me and so I started
looking at other sources.
Anytime there was a big storyI'd kind of see like what is
Wall Street Journal or what'sFox News saying about this, To
start to kind of piece togetherthe fact that people are saying
(02:03):
wildly different narrativesabout something that happens.
And then I found All Sides in2020.
And I thought this is great,this is saving me a lot of time.
I don't really want to be anews junkie though I think I was
kind of headed down that roadbut I want to be informed, you
know.
And so I started using AllSides for my news and at the
(02:26):
time I was a public schooladministrator, so I was
overseeing kind ofimplementation of COVID
protocols in our schools inDenver sort of emerged from the
(02:48):
pandemic I took a break fromworking in schools and was sort
of looking for something new todo.
All Sides posted for a businessmanager something I knew I
could do.
And here I am, three yearslater, still working for All
Sides.
And I think the great thingabout Allsides is that we are
offering you information in avery fragmented media
(03:09):
information ecosystem and justserving it up in a different way
that's very accessible and verybalanced, but without an agenda
.
So the phrase we use is we'regiving you the information and
letting you decide for yourself.
We use is we're giving you theinformation and letting you
decide for yourself, and it'sall based on patented technology
that we've developed over about12 years.
(03:31):
And one thing that I saw when Icame to Allsides is that there
is truly a multi-partisanbackground within the actual
people running it.
So you know myself, I lean left.
I also come from kind of aconservative economic background
(03:54):
, but I'm always kind ofgrappling with.
I'm a millennial and so the factthat, like much of my
generation, is not doing as wellas our parents.
There's people that I work withevery day on all sides who
describe themselves there's ananti-fascism, pro-democracy.
(04:16):
That's one person's descriptionof themselves.
Another one is an anarchist,libertarian homeschooling mom,
libertarian homeschooling mom.
Another one is conservative, onthe royal Christian path.
So really runs the gamut.
And I think what I want tospread to the rest of our
(04:40):
country is that we can stillcome together, disagree strongly
politically but work towards ashared solution.
And what the values we shareare that we believe in democracy
, we believe that the peopleshould have a voice and we
believe that we have to at leastlisten to the other side and
(05:05):
consider their perspective, evenif we don't agree.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And it's such an interesting thing because you
talk about you know your familyin Missouri reading something
different, right?
I'm in Arizona, I have familyin rural Iowa and sometimes back
there like reading what theirnewspapers say.
I'm like it's such aninteresting thing because, again
, I think the number one thingfor media literacy is genuinely
(05:30):
just to be curious, right, and Ithink that that's why, as a
teacher in 2016 specifically, Ireally heavily leaned on all
sides because I wanted to justshow my students.
Look at the difference in howthis specific thing is being
reported.
Why is that important?
Like why?
Why do we need to know these?
(05:52):
So, for example, on your siteright now is talking about the
Colbert show being canceled andhow you know the.
The center is talking about it,the right and the left, and one
of the things I reallyappreciate about your website,
too, is it has a code on it, sothere's two lefts, a center and
two rights, so you can kind ofsee the left and the right
(06:14):
extreme.
But again, it is very much likeyou said, we don't have to go
looking for all of this.
It literally exists on one siteand you don't have to be a
teacher, you can just besomebody who's like I'm really
interested to see howdeportations are being presented
in the media.
You know how the ColumbiaUniversity settlement is going.
(06:35):
There's so many differentthings and building this habit
of looking at multipleperspectives habit of looking at
multiple perspectives and youknow, we all know looking at
perspectives that are not yourshelp strengthen your own
perspective, because not only doyou know what you think, but
you know why you disagree with.
You know people on the otherside, whatever that looks like.
(06:58):
So why is it so important, doyou think that we have our views
challenged and that we don'tstay in this kind of ecosystem,
that you know, of words that wemake us feel good or make us
feel like, see, I was right,because everything I'm reading
means toward that um, I think,as we especially um, as we sort
(07:23):
of mature as human beings, oneof the realizations that I hope
we all have is that none of usholds the absolute truth on the
world.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I can remember I was raised Catholic, I'm still
Catholic, and I went to a summercamp that was very, I think,
baptist in nature, butdefinitely not Catholic, and in
fact, the kids I went to summercamp with, and even my
counselors, found Catholicismkind of threatening.
It was like why do you worshipMary and why do you, you know,
(07:57):
do all these things?
And you know, it kind of gaveme pause because I was like I
don't really worship Mary, likewhat.
That's not really my experienceof Catholicism, um, and but it
gave me an opportunity, likethem asking me questions of
their perception of Catholicismand not me being like, well,
(08:19):
that's not quite right, likethat's kind of an extreme.
Maybe some people do, but notanyone that I know.
And then also being able forthem to challenge me about some
of my beliefs and have toexplain them clarifies my own
thinking.
The kind of Catholicism that Iwas brought up in was something
(08:46):
that was a very much prioritizedquestioning what we were
learning and and this idea thatyou know you can kind of follow
the rules at the beginning ofyour life when you don't know
much and it's helpful, but thenas you mature and get older, you
need to challenge those rulesin order to really become who
(09:08):
you're meant to be.
So that kind of upbringing andhaving those experiences I think
laid the groundwork for me oneverything else outside of
religion you know of.
Okay, well, you're telling methis one perspective, but it's
not the absolute truth.
And what are these other peoplethink that come from wildly
(09:32):
different backgrounds.
What do they think on this?
And that's why I think it'simportant to seek out multiple
perspectives and where All Sidescomes in, we don't have a media
literacy framework.
There's really really good onesout there with really snappy,
(09:55):
easy-to-remember acronyms thatI'm sure many of the teachers
listening to this know.
One of my favorite curriculumsto pair with All Sides is
Project Look Sharp.
They have really great lessonplans.
We don't offer a lot of thatbecause A it already exists and
B it's more about.
(10:16):
We think it's the experience ofAll Sides that helps you be more
media literate, media helps yoube more media literate.
So we're very focused onexperience, on habit building,
on introducing students to.
You know the concepts ofcritical thinking and what and
(10:37):
asking you know the questionsabout what's the agenda of this
writer, who's funding them, etc.
But then how do you actually dothat in your day-to-day as a
busy person who has a life?
What we don't want them to dois just avoid the news because
it's depressing.
So finding an actual habit thatworks for them to read the news
(10:58):
in a balanced way is where AllSites comes in.
And then the other piece I wouldsay that we focus on is being
accessible.
There's a lot of data that wecould add to this.
Who are the funding sources?
If you know of ground news,they sort of take more of this
(11:19):
approach of like you have thisone thing and then there's all
of these different data pointsaround it, and there's utility
in that, certainly, and it'shelpful to have that information
aggregated.
In our experience, people findit overwhelming and less
accessible for their day-to-dayuse.
(11:39):
So we've worked hard and itactually is hard to not let it
get cluttered with a lot ofdifferent data points because it
is all out there, and to reallyedit it to.
Here's what we think is mostuseful to just the average
newsreader not news junkies, butlike the average person.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I appreciate that you say like stuff already exists,
right.
Like I'd like to give a shoutout to the National Association
for Media Literacy Education Iwas part of their cohort Like
they have amazing lessons, youknow, and I will link everything
that is mentioned here.
And I appreciate too thatyou're like we could do all
these extra things.
But it is like more informationisn't always great because,
(12:24):
I'll be honest, there have beentimes where if I were to get on
a site and there's so muchinformation I'm not interested,
like I can't have the brainspace for it.
But, you know, having theability to just look at
something and say, here's whatit is, it's interesting that you
bring up growing up Catholic.
I also grew up Catholic.
So if you and I were having aconversation about, like,
(12:46):
growing up Catholic, we mightfind a lot of similarities, we
might find some differences, butwe also, if the only person we
talk to is each other, we becomein this echo chamber where we
just you know you can assumewell, everybody knows what a
Catholic is, everybody knowswhat you know.
We do whatever else, and it'snot until you have it challenged
right, have kids, everybody.
(13:07):
Because then they ask you likewhy do we do this, why do we do
this, and I love that.
That's, I mean, that's why Ibecame a teacher.
You know we had a conversationbefore and you shared a time
where your views were challengedwith me.
Would you mind sharing thatstory, because I think that that
is such a great example ofhaving something that you
(13:27):
believe to be true.
And then it was challenged andit just kind of made you curious
and made you think about thingsand it's it's a great example
of growth, because what we don'twant is for people to say this
is what I know, this is what Ithink is right, and I'm never
going to change my mind.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Right, yeah, a more recent example would be.
You know, there's a lot ofexamples in my mind of where
President Trump has overreachedhis powers as an executive, and
I know I'm not alone in thisviewpoint and it's very worrying
(14:06):
to me for democracy and so allof those things out there that
it's just like democracy iscrumbling.
I'm like, yeah, no, you know,and somebody who on my team, who
is more conservative, said, youknow, during the Obama years,
(14:30):
they, there was, I felt anexistential threat to democracy
as well, and I'm like what areyou talking about, obama?
Hope, come on, hope, come on,um.
(14:52):
And they were like, well, therethere was so much bureaucratic
overreach, um, and so much ofthe government infiltrating into
our lives in a way that feltlike we weren't being heard
anymore, like even if we voted,it didn't matter, because the
bureaucracy would just sort ofdo what it wanted to do and I
didn't feel represented at allby that government.
(15:12):
And that's when I realized likewe have the same worry, like we
are feeling like we are notrepresented, and to me, what it
evolved my thinking to was notlike Trump's.
Fine, you know, like I didn'tchange my mind, but I did think.
You know one of them, andactually this was someone who's
very conservative, and we cameto an agreement on this.
(15:35):
One of the most importantproblems today is that our
politicians have, for the last20 years, had gotten about a
50-50 split when it came to thenational vote.
None of them have gotten astupid majority from the
electorate and they are actinglike they did and they are
(15:58):
forgetting that half of thecountry did not vote for them,
and that, to me, is one of themajor problems right now is that
our politicians are doing likea winner takes all approach
rather than all right, I won,now let's broaden the coalition,
(16:18):
open up, you know, get a biggerumbrella here and figure out
how I can serve all Americans.
They kind of give it lipservice, but they aren't
actually doing it, and so and mycolleague was like 100% I agree
with that, and that was thatwas really eye opening for me,
and I think if we hadn't hadthis culture at all sides, where
(16:40):
, if someone says somethingthat's not only do I disagree
with, but it's a littlethreatening, instead of being
like ugh, you know, and gettingemotional about it being like I
know this person, I respect thework they do Let me think about
this.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
That culture has really helped me get to like
more kind of root cause thinking, which anyone that's worked
with me in any job I love rootcause thinking of asking why,
multiple, multiple times, to tryto get to the bottom of what's
really going on, when I thinkthat's a great thing thing about
the American political system,right, is that they're like you
(17:20):
said, like you're like, well,during the Trump administration,
I feel this and your colleagueslike, well, I felt like that
during Obama, and it makes mewonder, like, if we went back
far enough, like would we findgroups of people in every
administration that were like Ifelt this way or I was nervous
about that, and I I love and soappreciate that the conversation
(17:41):
was not the politicianthemselves, not necessarily the
parties themselves, but morewhat is the actual issue we're
looking at?
We are both feeling at somepoint we were not represented
and that's like that's the scarything and it's it almost takes.
You know, I think one of thehard things, especially with the
(18:03):
continuous news cycle, right,is everything feels so important
all the time and it gets to beso overwhelming that you, like
you said, it stirs up emotionsInstead of stepping back and
saying, well, I wonder whatother administrations have done
this, I wonder how that hasturned out.
I wonder you know how myfriends on the other side, one
(18:26):
of the, you know, one of the bigthings right now is it tends to
be I'm noticing through thenews through politicians is the
finger pointing Well, thisside's doing this and this
side's doing this, but it's likebut as a whole, we're a country
, so so how does this look?
What are some things that wecan look at and say it's not a
(18:47):
person, it's not a party.
This is a common issue and,honestly, it just depends what
side people fall on, thatthey're either going to feel
represented or not, and thatwhat a cool culture to work for,
to have, like those are hardconversations.
Those are not conversationsthat everybody can have in their
workplace, right, or maybe evenknow how to have, like I'm
(19:09):
thinking, people who are goinghome for Thanksgiving and
they're like you know,thanksgiving tends to be a quote
, unquote popular time to dopolitics, which to each their
own, but having conversationsand wondering, like, why do you
think that?
Where did that come from?
Right, when you're talkingabout Catholicism, that's
(19:29):
interesting.
We don't do that.
Where did that come from?
Or, like you said, that'sactually a really extreme side.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
That's not what a normal practicing catholic um
does well and and I think thethe key is to resist vilifying
the other side.
Um, I went to, I did thisconference, um called frontiers
(19:59):
of democracy and they um wastalking about what we're doing
with all sides, but it was wasinteresting is I listened to a
(20:22):
panel and that was fascinating.
There, you know, it was like600 years ago, a King had made
these two groups, the Hutus andthe Tutsis, and for a good
reason.
I'm not going to try to explainit again, but the King had good
intentions in mind.
And then fast forward and itstarted to be used as.
(20:45):
Have you ever read the book theSneetches, yeah, by Dr Seuss?
Dr Seuss, yes, I think aboutthat book a lot, because it's
like who has a star in theirbelly and who does not, and that
defines who is in and who isout.
And that's how these two kindof fairly arbitrary titles
started to be used in thisculture and the hate was slow,
(21:11):
slowly and methodically built upthat by the time the violence
happened, people weren't allthat surprised, and what I see
in our culture is the beginningsof that.
There was a TikTok video rightafter Trump was elected.
That really disturbed me and itwas a young woman walking
(21:35):
around her neighborhood and shemeant it as a joke.
So generally I'm like all in onjokey things, but this one
bothered me.
She's like walking around kindof pretending like she was
looking at her neighbors andlooking for who was smiling that
day the day after Trump waselected.
Looking for who was smilingthat day the day after Trump was
elected, and if someone seemedlike they were in a good mood,
(21:57):
oh must be, must have voted forTrump.
And now they're on like herblacklist and I just I think
that is the kind of thinking wehave to resist, because I can
tell you that my attitude hasbeen I will not let national
politics rule my personalemotions.
(22:18):
So I might have had a smile Idon't remember how I felt that
day but I might have had a smileon my face that day and not
voted for Trump.
Or I might drink Coca-Cola orPepsi or like there's all these
things that are beingpoliticized and we have to
resist that vilification of eachother.
And I think these things likeall sides or you know, namly, or
(22:41):
anything, that kind of helpsyou break out of your filter
bubble and understand the mediayou're ingesting a little better
, helps you resist that andwhatever habits you can kind of
build into your own life to beless hateful towards things that
(23:02):
are different from you ishelpful to our democracy.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
It's interesting too.
I mean living in Arizona formost of my life.
My family moved here when I wassix, you know we kind of grew
up with like the GoldwaterRepublicans, like you know, and
we have people like Sandra DayO'Connor, who was a Republican
and she, you know, became thefirst woman Supreme Court
justice and I think that, youknow, growing up here really
(23:30):
gave me an appreciation for thepolitical diversity of Arizona.
I think a lot of times peoplelook at electoral maps and
they're like Arizona's red,colorado's blue, and that's what
they are, and it's like it isway, way more complicated than
that.
But I appreciate that you saylike the vilification, because
one of the things I notice is,as soon as we point to somebody
(23:53):
else and say they're doing this,we relieve ourselves of
responsibility and really in ademocracy our responsibility is
to to learn and to understand.
And the vilification of ourneighbors, I think, is, like you
said, like national politics.
National politics is important.
I do not want to downplay that,but our local and state are
(24:15):
really, really important andaffect us on the daily right.
People in my neighborhood, thespeed limits near schools, like
these are the things that affectme and my family.
And when you talked about thattech talk.
I'm like that does make me sad,because what we're doing is
we're lumping a type of voter,or a voter who voted for
(24:37):
candidate A or candidate B, asthis person.
And the more I talk to peoplewho have voted again in 2024,
voted for Trump, voted forHarris the more I have these
conversations, the more Iunderstand why people vote the
way they do.
(24:57):
That doesn't mean I have toagree, but a lot of it has to do
with the media they'reingesting.
So now I can like look again atall sides and be like, if I'm
just looking at this side, I canunderstand why somebody voted
for this candidate, yeah.
Or on the local level, I canunderstand why somebody voted
for this candidate.
Or on the local level, I canunderstand why you know the city
council is mostly this party,or the state government is
(25:20):
mostly this party, and it is.
It makes me sad because I thinkthat the more we point fingers
and blame each other and thevilification of other Americans,
it does.
It does nothing but drive a big, you know hole in our democracy
and it gets rid of civildiscourse and it's just.
(25:43):
It's a hard thing.
So if I'm a teacher, right and Iagain, I love the all sides is
literally for everybody.
Anybody can get on it.
It is not for just educators,it is not for just students.
But if I'm a teacher and I amin a school where I'm noticing
this right in my classroom,purpose sometimes to teach
(26:04):
things because I didn't want oneside or the other to say, oh,
she's this or she's this orshe's trying to indoctrinate
that word, indoctrinate my childinto believing X, y or Z, how
(26:25):
can I, as a teacher, thenutilize what all sides has to
kind of help me?
Again, I still have to teachmedia literacy, right, I still
have to teach current events.
Kids are going to come in andask questions.
It's the best thing about kidsis they come in and they're like
can they do this, right, kids?
You asked me during the Obamaadministration and during the
Trump administration can he dothis?
(26:47):
Yep, we're talking aboutcurrent events.
If I'm a teacher, how canAllsides help me to kind of
navigate this process?
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Well.
So I would encourage anybodywho's out there that's a teacher
, to just first start usingAllsides for yourself.
There's an app that you candownload, that's free, where you
can scroll the news, if that'show you like to get your news.
There's a newsletter you cansign up for if you want to just
(27:18):
get a little briefing everymorning or once a week on kind
of here's what's going on, oryou can just go to our website
and browse the headline roundupsthere, and by headline roundup
what I mean by that is we have ateam that's working 24-7 to
identify the key stories of theday of the hour, look across the
(27:39):
spectrum for what differentorganizations and outlets are
saying about it.
They write a little blurb abouthere's the facts, here's how
the media covered it and here'smaybe some context.
Here's the facts, here's howthe media covered it and here's
maybe some context.
And then they pick three highquality articles from the left,
center and the right that youcan further explore.
(28:01):
That's a headline roundup, andso that's kind of the marquee
thing that's available on oursite and a good way to sort of
get initial or kind of yourdaily news, essentially
especially at the nationalpolitical level.
And so I would start thereunderstand what the resources
(28:22):
are, and then when your studentsso that could be one way that
you introduce your students tonews is you just have them do
the same, right, right, and thenyou're not pushing any one
outlet, any one topic.
There's so many differentawesome excuse me entry points
(28:43):
that I've seen teachers usewhere they've had students read
the news, read all threeperspectives and then pick a
perspective that they agree with, but then they make them
actually speak from the otherperspective, as I was saying, so
you can teach to the news andjust use it for current events.
(29:07):
It can also be really usefulfor that one-off event of what
you're describing.
If a student walks in and sayscan they really do this?
This is happening, it'sthreatening to my community.
My parents are scared.
I want to talk about it becausethat's all I'm thinking about
(29:27):
right now in my life.
You know, and you know as ateacher, I'm not getting any
lesson done today.
The kids are hot about this.
We have to address it.
But then how do I navigate that?
Because of a politicallydiverse classroom and you can
bring up the headline on allsides and have you know, a
really simple thing to do isjust have them read the articles
(29:50):
and then write a reflectionpaper, and that helps them kind
of like, process their ownthoughts.
We also, kind of hot off thepress.
We just posted some guides fordialogue in the classroom that I
can share with you, liz, toshare out in the links, and this
was a collaboration with theHarvard Graduate School of
(30:12):
Education and it's, you know,how to handle awkward or
offensive comments, five stepsto guide a surprise conversation
, how to set the stage for hardconversation.
So then, when they do happen,probably around November, you're
ready.
You're ready, um, so, uh, I cansend all those to you, but
(30:36):
they're meant to be just likesuper quick.
There's even one that'sformatted so that you can kind
of secretly scroll on yourlaptop the talking points, and
they're like nice and big sothat, as you're, you know, sort
of pretending like this is allcoming from you, you're just,
you know, sort of following thisguide, um, so, anyway, um, I
think those are the sorts oftools that we're trying to put
out there for teachers, um,because what we don't want to
(31:02):
happen is what you know.
There's a lot of good stats outthere, especially on ed week, of
the majority of teachers thatare just avoiding it.
Yeah, and I get it like totallyunderstand, especially if you
don't have the backup of youradministrators.
And I do want to say, as aformer administrator if there's
(31:24):
any administrators listening tothis podcast right now you need
to think through what you woulddo if a parent came in
complaining about a teachertalking about something in their
social studies classroom ortheir service classroom or
whatever it is, and be ready forhow you're going to handle that
, because I have seen that gonebad, gone really bad, really
(31:48):
wrong, and we've lost reallygreat teachers because of it,
because the administrator wasn'tprepared with how to respond in
a balanced, even fair way.
So definitely we don't havethat guide yet.
That just gave me an idea thatwe should put something like
that up for the administrator,but I do think that that's
(32:12):
important for administrators tobe ready to handle those
conversations as well like youknow, what did you hear when you
(32:36):
got home?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Here's what happened in class.
Okay, now can we talk about?
You know, if there is an issue,like you know, having the again
having the hard conversations,and I think you're right, I
don't think administrators aretaught.
Somebody comes in hot and saysyour teacher said X, y and Z,
and it's like I really don'tknow what to say.
I do want to go back to whenyou're talking about the
(32:58):
different sides.
So one of the things I learnedfrom Dr Luke Perez, who is one
of our faculty members at ASU,in the School of Civic and
Economic Thought and Leadership,and I do have a blog post that
I will link in is it would be areally amazing thing to split
your class in three.
Uh, because for me, I neverreally knew the politics of my
(33:19):
kids.
I mean, you can kind of figureit out, right, you're a teacher.
Um, my students didn't reallyknow my politics because it
wasn't relevant to the situation.
But dividing kids up, havingthem each read so again, I'll
bring up Colbert again, becausethat's what's happening and
having them, you know, as agroup, each read one of the
headlines that are picked out,and I appreciate, too, that on
(33:40):
the site.
It says like, straight up onthere, like who, like where it's
coming from, right?
So I just clicked it again andit is about um, the Gaza crisis.
One of them's from theassociated One is from the
Associated Press, one's from theTimes of Israel, one's from Fox
News Digital.
But having the kids read it anddo a three sentence summary who
(34:02):
is the author, what are theyarguing and why does that matter
?
Right, and that is you know youcould do like who is the author
?
Well, the author is theAssociated Press and according
to all sides, that is pretty farover on the left.
Fox News says X, y, z, andaccording to all sides, they're
(34:23):
pretty far on the right.
So why did?
Why does that matter?
And it'll help facilitate aconversation with your students
of why are these different.
Because, at the end of the day,media is a business, right?
They get money based on theclicks.
Students can know this, right.
Tiktoks If you're looking atTikTok, a lot of them rage bait
(34:45):
you because you'll click on it.
It's a behavioral thing.
And if you have students, too,that are like, oh, I don't care
about the new, because youalways have kids that are like,
why does this matter.
If something you knowcontroversial, quote unquote
happens in a sports, have them.
Look at the different sides,right, have if it's the NBA or
(35:05):
like the WNBA, because they justhad their all-star.
Like the way things arereported are so different.
But having these conversationswith them are so important.
And one of the things, too I Ihave literally I've used for
nine years is on your websiteunder media bias.
There is a chart that kind ofshows us where these you know
(35:28):
news, um news people land.
Right when CNN is, where Foxnews is, where Forbes is, things
like that.
There's a bias checker Like it.
It really goes into explainingwhy, right, it's not just all
sides.
One day woke up and was likewe're going to put all these
together.
There is actually a system andtalking to students about why
(35:51):
that is important and andlooking at our bias and I do
want to say I always really tryit in the classroom to say bias
is not a bad thing, right, I ambiased to the place where we get
our pizza.
Right, I'm not really open towhere we get our pizza.
We get our pizza from a certainplace.
I like it Great.
We get our pizza from a certainplace.
I like it Great.
(36:11):
That is a bias.
I have a bias because my familyagain is from rural Iowa.
I understand the farming groupof people and we want to order a
pizza.
It has to be a conversation.
It's not everybody is going tohave the same bias.
I do.
I again, as a educator, I lovedthe media bias section of the
(36:47):
site and would use that chartall the time, and I again I see
it floating around on Facebook.
I see teacher groups talkingabout it because it is.
It's a great resource, not justfor teachers but for everybody
and not I definitely have lookedat it and gone oh wow.
You know I do read this exactsame thing every day and maybe I
(37:12):
should try to read something onthe other side or something
that's more center, just to getdifferent information.
So I'm not in my own littleecho chamber.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Yeah, and I want to double down on what you've said
that bias is just inherent towho we are as humans.
It's not bad.
What's bad is when we pretendlike there isn't bias or we
conceal it and so we talk at allsides about like we are
revealing the bias of theseoutlets.
Um, people are probablywondering like how we get come
(37:46):
up with those ratings andespecially the ones on the bias
chart.
There's multiple methods used,so we look at 16 different types
of bias.
We do actually have a wholelesson plan and guide on this on
our website if someone wants todeep dive into it.
Another entry point forstudents is that they go analyze
and come up with what theythink the bias is of an outlet
(38:09):
and then they compare their ownanalysis to all sides.
That's always kind of aninteresting exercise to do if
you're really getting deep intothe media literacy.
But we, so we scan for these 16different types of bias then
and then we use two differentmethods, so one is actually
(38:30):
using experts.
So we we have a diverse,politically diverse set of
people usually six people thatreview the content from these
outlets and then provide arating.
We're just looking at theoutput from these places we're
(38:52):
not analyzing.
Where is their funding?
Who owns them?
Where are they located?
It's just pure content is whatwe are focused on.
And then we also do what'scalled a blind bias survey.
So we have non-experts, justpeople who are out there doing
(39:17):
this for us, um, who they tellus their own bias, and then we
give them a piece of content andthey don't know where it came
from and they rate it, and thenwe have it's very, it's got uh,
some control articles in thereas well from other outlets, so
it's not all from the sameoutlet.
And so we compile the resultsof the blind bias survey and the
expert editorial panel and thenwe combine that into one rating
(39:40):
.
The idea is that sometimesexperts are wrong when it comes
to bias because they're kind ofin there, they're maybe too deep
into it, um, and sometimes justgeneral population is wrong.
So if you combine those twothings, then you're a little bit
closer to the truth, because itis always subjective, um.
(40:01):
And so that's where that's howwe come up with those blind bias
ratings I do like on all ofyour things.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
It says ratings do not reflect accuracy or
credibility only a source'sperspective, like I.
I appreciate that because Ithink that human nature
categorizes things and for us,the easiest categorization or
categorization is good or bad.
So if I'm looking at a chartand I'm looking at what side I
(40:32):
am on, I can say, well, theseare all good and the other ones
are bad.
Where you're just like.
This is not accuracy orcredibility.
We're literally looking attheir content and like, doing it
like that, and everybody isbiased, right.
But the things that can beharmful are the hidden biases or
the pretending that biasdoesn't exist, right, because
(40:57):
that's when things start to getdivisive, that's when we start
to get misled with things.
I mean, there are a lot ofInternet celebrities, I think,
that have become very divisiveand and going down um has, you
know, led people astray, if youwill, um, and I think that can
(41:19):
be harmful, whereas if you canjust say, no, I know this person
leans heavily left, or I knowthis person leans heavily right,
or this person has a religiousor a political agenda, which,
again, are not bad things if youcan recognize that, that's what
it is, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
And I'm glad you brought up credibility, because
there's other ratings agenciesout there that rate the degree
of credibility has been that itis very difficult to rate that
it could, because if you thinkabout it almost like a line
chart, it kind of like bouncesall over the place.
(41:57):
So if it's, you know and I'mnot talking about the outlets
out there that are spewingnonsense and intentionally,
maliciously spewingdisinformation, I'm not talking
about that I'm talking aboutpeople who think that they are
doing good journalism andthey're wrong whether that's
(42:19):
their negligence, not checkingtheir facts, maybe they're too
much in a bubble, whatever it isbut they get the story wrong,
(42:55):
um, and that leads tocredibility kind of bouncing.
It just sort of depends on thetopic.
Um, and bias is a little biteasier.
It's more static.
Um, it doesn't change quite asdramatically over time.
And we made a decision prettyearly on to say you know what we
do really big, deep dives intomisinformation and
disinformation, and we will kindof do the work for you to go
out and like read a lot aboutsomething that seems like a
really controversial narrativeand then write up here's what we
found.
We won't say, and here's thetruth, but we'll then write up.
Here's what we found.
We won't say and here's thetruth.
But we'll say like here's sortof all the things we found and
(43:17):
what you need to weigh whendeciding what really happened
here, um, but we won't write thecredibility because we just
have just we're pretty smallactually and don't have the
capacity for that, and it'salmost like whack-a-mole in a
way if you're trying to do sortof fact-checking type stuff.
And so that's why we've reallyfocused on bias, because we know
(43:40):
we can do that really well in away that's actually useful for
people.
And then I was also going tocomment on influencers.
So we just posted about twomonths ago, our first influencer
bias chart.
Um, we chose to start with xbecause there is such a large
contra large um concentration ofjournalists there, um, and that
(44:04):
took us gosh about four or fivemonths to do um, to figure out.
You know, who are we going torate, what's the criteria that
they're sort of relevant enoughto rate?
And then how do you rate asingle person?
Because people are all over theplace.
They do not, they're notnecessarily consistent in their
(44:29):
bias, like an organization is.
And that was really aninteresting journey, lots of
really.
It was kind of a whole companyeffort to figure this out and it
was really led by JulieMastrini, our director of media
bias, and I think they did agreat job.
(44:52):
It was really well received.
I was sitting on an airplanenext to a guy who just happened
to know about all sides butdidn't know we had released this
influencer chart, and hehappened to get all of his news
on X and he says that's what hedoes he wakes up in the morning,
he scrolls X to get his newsand he, when I showed him the
(45:12):
chart, he goes oh great, I'mgoing to follow some of these on
the other side to make surethat my feed is more balanced.
And that is exactly what I wantpeople to use it for is just
kind of expand what's goingthrough their feed.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Well, and it's interesting to look at this
chart because I mean I canabsolutely see the conversation
of well, so-and-so is on thisside and that's.
There's no way, but we're onlylooking at the content they put
out on X.
So the way these influencers tomaybe show up on TikTok or
Instagram, or again, I'm I'm aGen Xer, so all of these, all of
(45:51):
these different social medias,get really overwhelming.
But it would be an interestingconversation to talk about how
this influencer shows up on Xversus your perception of them,
because you only see them onTikTok.
That's again, a veryinteresting conversation.
And talking about how peopleshow up different places and
(46:15):
humans are humans.
Right, you talked about the youknow credibility.
I always think about when, inthe 1970s, right, people got
their news twice a day.
They got a newspaper and thenthey watched the evening news.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Now everything.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Everything is breaking news.
I feel like, no matter what I'mwatching, there's breaking news
and people want to be the firstto get a new story out because,
again, this is a business andthat's not a good or bad thing,
that's just what it is.
But you want to be the firstone out and sometimes being the
first one out means you don'thave the complete story, and
that's where, again, anotherconversation to have is we get a
(46:57):
story and then what happens?
When it percolates for a coupleof days?
Do we find out more?
Why is that important?
Where do we get our news?
Right, I think a lot of peopledo get theirs on social, because
that's where they're spendingtheir time.
I don't get a newspaper.
I watch the morning news, butI'm not watching the afternoon
news because I'm watching sports.
(47:18):
Or we don't have our TV on,we're doing something else.
But all of these things canexist in a different place,
right?
So, looking at the X influencerbias chart and I will again
link this this it's something toinstead of immediately saying,
nope, this person should be, no,no, no, no.
Why are they showing up on Xthis way?
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
What?
What is there to?
And again it just startsconversations.
We're not looking at right orwrong, we're not looking at good
or bad, we're starting aconversation wrong.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
We're not looking at good or bad.
We're starting a conversation,absolutely, and you know we are
going to go there and lookcross-platform because, you're
right, they show up differentlyand it's super interesting.
And the same way that when wefirst started with traditional
news outlets, seeing thedifferent headlines from the
outlets was really interesting,news outlets seeing the
(48:15):
different headlines from theoutlets was really interesting,
and to see how differently theyemphasize different parts of a
story depending on what theirbias was.
In the same way, like people doshow up differently on
different platforms and it'sfascinating.
So I think you're ontosomething there.
And then you know, what wehaven't even talked about yet is
AI and the fact that we don'teven know if some of it's real.
(48:38):
Right, and that is something wehave been absolutely grappling
with.
How do we use technology tocombat technology in a way, use
technology to combat technologyin a way, and thinking about how
, how can we help peopleidentify if the probability that
(49:00):
something is real Becauseyou'll never be sure, but there
are ways to sort of say likethis is 90% likely to be AI, or
90% likely to be real, or 50, 50.
It's anyone?
Yeah, I'm not sure.
So that's, you know, maybesomething that we could do in
(49:21):
the future that I think would bereally useful for people, but
right now, definitely a sort ofbeing very critical of anything
that you see out there.
I took a quiz that a newsoutlet did on like is this AI or
(49:41):
not, and I only got 60% right,you know, and I went in like, oh
, I'll be great it was.
It was tough.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Well, because it's so again, it's so new and they're
asking you to look at somethingin a snapshot, whereas and I
think I know the one of thethings I really appreciate about
all sides is you guys aren'tjust throwing things out to
throw them out there, like wetalked about this ex-influencer
bias charts months ago.
(50:09):
Right, you're, you're reallytaking time and creating things
that have research behind themand it's not just throwing
things up for the sake of doingit.
It is intentional.
And I think, when we talk aboutmisinformation and
disinformation and for listenerswho don't know the difference,
(50:30):
misinformation is wrong facts,sometimes, most of the time like
accidental, not on purpose.
Disinformation is purposefullyrepresenting something
incorrectly to sway people.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Well, and there's always a truth within
disinformation and that's whatmakes it so dangerous
(51:14):
no-transcript.
And so there's definitely it'spretty dangerous out there.
The other thing I would reallyencourage teachers.
So you know, there's all sides.
There's media literacy, there'sreally thinking critically
about the information you'reingesting.
But there's also and we startedto go into this with, like,
where are you getting your newsof?
What are your informationhabits?
(51:36):
What are your habits on yourphone or your TV with how much
and how often you're taking inthis information?
There's this great teacher thatwas on our advisory board for
all sides and now has startedthis group called disconnect um
in milwaukee, and she it, herapproach, has been is incredible
(52:02):
, um, it's it's really helpingstudents um rewire the
relationship with their screensso that they can have a
healthier life, but then alsoteaching their community how to
do the same, and the method thatshe uses is convening them in
(52:25):
groups.
So she did this with herstudents as a teacher found that
it was very successful, verypopular with the students, and
so she's trying to spread thatto everyone and it really uses
the approach of setting goals,reflecting on those goals,
sharing experiences, listeningto other people's experiences
and then giving alternatives.
(52:45):
So the last 20 minutes of everymeeting they do what's called
handiwork.
So essentially it's just crafts.
It's whatever you want to do,but the kids learn that you get
kind of that really nice calming, dopamine release and
anti-anxiety by doing thingslike knitting and jewelry making
(53:09):
and you know, whatever it isthat you want to do, I have
behind me I do botanicalillustration to calm myself down
.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
So any just anything you can do where you're sort of
creating with your hands in away that feels good to you is an
excellent antidote to phonesand and the anxiety that our
phones give us and we will haveKat on, because I've had a
conversation with her too and Iactually have noticed that the
times where I tend to be on myphone the most actually switch
(53:37):
to embroidery, because I love toembroider.
I again have some behind me andit is like listening to her talk
about that and I can't wait tohave her on, because the crux of
it is is it's not this judgment, it's not this you spend too
much time on your phone, so youneed to do this.
It genuinely is a conversationand and giving alternatives, and
(54:00):
not again blaming people forspending all this time on their
phone.
Like we're not trying to getrid of your phone, we're trying
to create a healthy relationshipwith it so that, in the end,
you feel better.
Yeah, and I love that.
Is there anything else that wemiss that you want to make sure
our listeners have before weleave, because I honestly feel
(54:23):
like we could have a five hourconversation about this.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
The one thing I do want to plug and I'll send you
the link for this, liz we have ajournalism contest coming up,
so we are going to offer theopportunity to any student to
write an all-side style headline, roundup or article, and there
will be three winners.
They'll each get $500 and theopportunity, if they would like,
(54:50):
to be published on all sides,and so, please, I invite you to
have your students participatein this.
It's a great classroom exerciseto just have everybody do it.
We did something like this lastyear and ended up publishing a
junior's article on our site.
That was just awesome andbrilliant, so I'm excited to do
(55:14):
it again this year and I wouldencourage any teachers to check
it out.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
Absolutely, and, again, we will link this in our
show notes.
If you follow the Center forAmerican Civics at ASU, we will
be tagging all sides.
We will be sharing their stuff,because the great thing about
the world of civics is we allwant to share each other's
things because, at the end ofthe day, we want to have a
(55:39):
citizenry that understands ourgovernment, understands these
things, and if they don't, theyknow where to go.
Alice, again, I literally couldsit and talk to you all day
because this stuff is sointeresting for me and I think
that it's it's always timely,right.
So thank you for your time,thank you for your expertise.
Um, and yes, please, allsidescom.
(56:03):
There's so much informationthat, no matter what you're
teaching, or, again, if you wantto download the app, and that's
how you get your news and thenyou can decide what you want to
read.
What a great way to start yourday or end your day.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
Absolutely, and thanks for having me on, liz, I
really appreciate it Okay.
Thank you everybody again for joining us on the
Arizona Civics Podcast.
We have already had threeamazing episodes and I'm really
excited for this fourth episodebecause talking about media
literacy, talking about how todo things in a way that is
nonpartisan, it gets yourstudents to think is really
important.
And when I taught AP governmentand politics for all my AP
(00:25):
teachers out there we do have a,you know, lessons we have to do
on the media and I alwaysutilized all sides because it
was a nice thing for me to putup.
We could see how differentthings were reported in the left
media, the right media, thecenter, and I know a lot of you
have probably utilized the bigspreadsheet that has all of the
(00:50):
media and where they kind of fiton the spectrum.
So I was very excited whentoday's guests reached out,
wanted to talk because medialiteracy is so important,
especially in this age ofconstant online activity.
So I'd love to introduce ourguest today, alice Sheehan from
Allsides.
Alice, can you tell a littlebit about yourself but then also
(01:13):
talk about what is Allsides andwhy is media literacy so
important?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Absolutely, and thank you for having me, Liz, I'm
really excited to be here.
I, you know, I found All Sidesof Myself in 2020.
And I was trying I kind of Iusually read sort of New York
Times and Denver Post.
I'm in Denver, Colorado, and Igot the sense that I wasn't
(01:39):
really getting the whole storyfrom the New York Times.
So then I started especially myfamily's in Missouri, and they
were saying very differentthings from me and so I started
looking at other sources.
Anytime there was a big storyI'd kind of see like what is
Wall Street Journal or what'sFox News saying about this, To
start to kind of piece togetherthe fact that people are saying
(02:03):
wildly different narrativesabout something that happens.
And then I found All Sides in2020.
And I thought this is great,this is saving me a lot of time.
I don't really want to be anews junkie though I think I was
kind of headed down that roadbut I want to be informed, you
know.
And so I started using AllSides for my news and at the
(02:26):
time I was a public schooladministrator, so I was
overseeing kind ofimplementation of COVID
protocols in our schools inDenver sort of emerged from the
(02:48):
pandemic I took a break fromworking in schools and was sort
of looking for something new todo.
All Sides posted for a businessmanager something I knew I
could do.
And here I am, three yearslater, still working for All
Sides.
And I think the great thingabout Allsides is that we are
offering you information in avery fragmented media
(03:09):
information ecosystem and justserving it up in a different way
that's very accessible and verybalanced, but without an agenda
.
So the phrase we use is we'regiving you the information and
letting you decide for yourself.
We use is we're giving you theinformation and letting you
decide for yourself, and it'sall based on patented technology
that we've developed over about12 years.
(03:31):
And one thing that I saw when Icame to Allsides is that there
is truly a multi-partisanbackground within the actual
people running it.
So you know myself, I lean left.
I also come from kind of aconservative economic background
(03:54):
, but I'm always kind ofgrappling with.
I'm a millennial and so the factthat, like much of my
generation, is not doing as wellas our parents.
There's people that I work withevery day on all sides who
describe themselves there's ananti-fascism, pro-democracy.
(04:16):
That's one person's descriptionof themselves.
Another one is an anarchist,libertarian homeschooling mom,
libertarian homeschooling mom.
Another one is conservative, onthe royal Christian path.
So really runs the gamut.
And I think what I want tospread to the rest of our
(04:40):
country is that we can stillcome together, disagree strongly
politically but work towards ashared solution.
And what the values we shareare that we believe in democracy
, we believe that the peopleshould have a voice and we
believe that we have to at leastlisten to the other side and
(05:05):
consider their perspective, evenif we don't agree.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And it's such an interesting thing because you
talk about you know your familyin Missouri reading something
different, right?
I'm in Arizona, I have familyin rural Iowa and sometimes back
there like reading what theirnewspapers say.
I'm like it's such aninteresting thing because, again
, I think the number one thingfor media literacy is genuinely
(05:30):
just to be curious, right, and Ithink that that's why, as a
teacher in 2016 specifically, Ireally heavily leaned on all
sides because I wanted to justshow my students.
Look at the difference in howthis specific thing is being
reported.
Why is that important?
Like why?
Why do we need to know these?
(05:52):
So, for example, on your siteright now is talking about the
Colbert show being canceled andhow you know the.
The center is talking about it,the right and the left, and one
of the things I reallyappreciate about your website,
too, is it has a code on it, sothere's two lefts, a center and
two rights, so you can kind ofsee the left and the right
(06:14):
extreme.
But again, it is very much likeyou said, we don't have to go
looking for all of this.
It literally exists on one siteand you don't have to be a
teacher, you can just besomebody who's like I'm really
interested to see howdeportations are being presented
in the media.
You know how the ColumbiaUniversity settlement is going.
(06:35):
There's so many differentthings and building this habit
of looking at multipleperspectives habit of looking at
multiple perspectives and youknow, we all know looking at
perspectives that are not yourshelp strengthen your own
perspective, because not only doyou know what you think, but
you know why you disagree with.
You know people on the otherside, whatever that looks like.
(06:58):
So why is it so important, doyou think that we have our views
challenged and that we don'tstay in this kind of ecosystem,
that you know, of words that wemake us feel good or make us
feel like, see, I was right,because everything I'm reading
means toward that um, I think,as we especially um, as we sort
(07:23):
of mature as human beings, oneof the realizations that I hope
we all have is that none of usholds the absolute truth on the
world.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I can remember I was raised Catholic, I'm still
Catholic, and I went to a summercamp that was very, I think,
baptist in nature, butdefinitely not Catholic, and in
fact, the kids I went to summercamp with, and even my
counselors, found Catholicismkind of threatening.
It was like why do you worshipMary and why do you, you know,
(07:57):
do all these things?
And you know, it kind of gaveme pause because I was like I
don't really worship Mary, likewhat.
That's not really my experienceof Catholicism, um, and but it
gave me an opportunity, likethem asking me questions of
their perception of Catholicismand not me being like, well,
(08:19):
that's not quite right, likethat's kind of an extreme.
Maybe some people do, but notanyone that I know.
And then also being able forthem to challenge me about some
of my beliefs and have toexplain them clarifies my own
thinking.
The kind of Catholicism that Iwas brought up in was something
(08:46):
that was a very much prioritizedquestioning what we were
learning and and this idea thatyou know you can kind of follow
the rules at the beginning ofyour life when you don't know
much and it's helpful, but thenas you mature and get older, you
need to challenge those rulesin order to really become who
(09:08):
you're meant to be.
So that kind of upbringing andhaving those experiences I think
laid the groundwork for me oneverything else outside of
religion you know of.
Okay, well, you're telling methis one perspective, but it's
not the absolute truth.
And what are these other peoplethink that come from wildly
(09:32):
different backgrounds.
What do they think on this?
And that's why I think it'simportant to seek out multiple
perspectives and where All Sidescomes in, we don't have a media
literacy framework.
There's really really good onesout there with really snappy,
(09:55):
easy-to-remember acronyms thatI'm sure many of the teachers
listening to this know.
One of my favorite curriculumsto pair with All Sides is
Project Look Sharp.
They have really great lessonplans.
We don't offer a lot of thatbecause A it already exists and
B it's more about.
(10:16):
We think it's the experience ofAll Sides that helps you be more
media literate, media helps yoube more media literate.
So we're very focused onexperience, on habit building,
on introducing students to.
You know the concepts ofcritical thinking and what and
(10:37):
asking you know the questionsabout what's the agenda of this
writer, who's funding them, etc.
But then how do you actually dothat in your day-to-day as a
busy person who has a life?
What we don't want them to dois just avoid the news because
it's depressing.
So finding an actual habit thatworks for them to read the news
(10:58):
in a balanced way is where AllSites comes in.
And then the other piece I wouldsay that we focus on is being
accessible.
There's a lot of data that wecould add to this.
Who are the funding sources?
If you know of ground news,they sort of take more of this
(11:19):
approach of like you have thisone thing and then there's all
of these different data pointsaround it, and there's utility
in that, certainly, and it'shelpful to have that information
aggregated.
In our experience, people findit overwhelming and less
accessible for their day-to-dayuse.
(11:39):
So we've worked hard and itactually is hard to not let it
get cluttered with a lot ofdifferent data points because it
is all out there, and to reallyedit it to.
Here's what we think is mostuseful to just the average
newsreader not news junkies, butlike the average person.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I appreciate that you say like stuff already exists,
right.
Like I'd like to give a shoutout to the National Association
for Media Literacy Education Iwas part of their cohort Like
they have amazing lessons, youknow, and I will link everything
that is mentioned here.
And I appreciate too thatyou're like we could do all
these extra things.
But it is like more informationisn't always great because,
(12:24):
I'll be honest, there have beentimes where if I were to get on
a site and there's so muchinformation I'm not interested,
like I can't have the brainspace for it.
But, you know, having theability to just look at
something and say, here's whatit is, it's interesting that you
bring up growing up Catholic.
I also grew up Catholic.
So if you and I were having aconversation about, like,
(12:46):
growing up Catholic, we mightfind a lot of similarities, we
might find some differences, butwe also, if the only person we
talk to is each other, we becomein this echo chamber where we
just you know you can assumewell, everybody knows what a
Catholic is, everybody knowswhat you know.
We do whatever else, and it'snot until you have it challenged
right, have kids, everybody.
(13:07):
Because then they ask you likewhy do we do this, why do we do
this, and I love that.
That's, I mean, that's why Ibecame a teacher.
You know we had a conversationbefore and you shared a time
where your views were challengedwith me.
Would you mind sharing thatstory, because I think that that
is such a great example ofhaving something that you
(13:27):
believe to be true.
And then it was challenged andit just kind of made you curious
and made you think about thingsand it's it's a great example
of growth, because what we don'twant is for people to say this
is what I know, this is what Ithink is right, and I'm never
going to change my mind.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Right, yeah, a more recent example would be.
You know, there's a lot ofexamples in my mind of where
President Trump has overreachedhis powers as an executive, and
I know I'm not alone in thisviewpoint and it's very worrying
(14:06):
to me for democracy and so allof those things out there that
it's just like democracy iscrumbling.
I'm like, yeah, no, you know,and somebody who on my team, who
is more conservative, said, youknow, during the Obama years,
(14:30):
they, there was, I felt anexistential threat to democracy
as well, and I'm like what areyou talking about, obama?
Hope, come on, hope, come on,um.
(14:52):
And they were like, well, therethere was so much bureaucratic
overreach, um, and so much ofthe government infiltrating into
our lives in a way that feltlike we weren't being heard
anymore, like even if we voted,it didn't matter, because the
bureaucracy would just sort ofdo what it wanted to do and I
didn't feel represented at allby that government.
(15:12):
And that's when I realized likewe have the same worry, like we
are feeling like we are notrepresented, and to me, what it
evolved my thinking to was notlike Trump's.
Fine, you know, like I didn'tchange my mind, but I did think.
You know one of them, andactually this was someone who's
very conservative, and we cameto an agreement on this.
(15:35):
One of the most importantproblems today is that our
politicians have, for the last20 years, had gotten about a
50-50 split when it came to thenational vote.
None of them have gotten astupid majority from the
electorate and they are actinglike they did and they are
(15:58):
forgetting that half of thecountry did not vote for them,
and that, to me, is one of themajor problems right now is that
our politicians are doing likea winner takes all approach
rather than all right, I won,now let's broaden the coalition,
(16:18):
open up, you know, get a biggerumbrella here and figure out
how I can serve all Americans.
They kind of give it lipservice, but they aren't
actually doing it, and so and mycolleague was like 100% I agree
with that, and that was thatwas really eye opening for me,
and I think if we hadn't hadthis culture at all sides, where
(16:40):
, if someone says somethingthat's not only do I disagree
with, but it's a littlethreatening, instead of being
like ugh, you know, and gettingemotional about it being like I
know this person, I respect thework they do Let me think about
this.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
That culture has really helped me get to like
more kind of root cause thinking, which anyone that's worked
with me in any job I love rootcause thinking of asking why,
multiple, multiple times, to tryto get to the bottom of what's
really going on, when I thinkthat's a great thing thing about
the American political system,right, is that they're like you
(17:20):
said, like you're like, well,during the Trump administration,
I feel this and your colleagueslike, well, I felt like that
during Obama, and it makes mewonder, like, if we went back
far enough, like would we findgroups of people in every
administration that were like Ifelt this way or I was nervous
about that, and I I love and soappreciate that the conversation
(17:41):
was not the politicianthemselves, not necessarily the
parties themselves, but morewhat is the actual issue we're
looking at?
We are both feeling at somepoint we were not represented
and that's like that's the scarything and it's it almost takes.
You know, I think one of thehard things, especially with the
(18:03):
continuous news cycle, right,is everything feels so important
all the time and it gets to beso overwhelming that you, like
you said, it stirs up emotionsInstead of stepping back and
saying, well, I wonder whatother administrations have done
this, I wonder how that hasturned out.
I wonder you know how myfriends on the other side, one
(18:26):
of the, you know, one of the bigthings right now is it tends to
be I'm noticing through thenews through politicians is the
finger pointing Well, thisside's doing this and this
side's doing this, but it's likebut as a whole, we're a country
, so so how does this look?
What are some things that wecan look at and say it's not a
(18:47):
person, it's not a party.
This is a common issue and,honestly, it just depends what
side people fall on, thatthey're either going to feel
represented or not, and thatwhat a cool culture to work for,
to have, like those are hardconversations.
Those are not conversationsthat everybody can have in their
workplace, right, or maybe evenknow how to have, like I'm
(19:09):
thinking, people who are goinghome for Thanksgiving and
they're like you know,thanksgiving tends to be a quote
, unquote popular time to dopolitics, which to each their
own, but having conversationsand wondering, like, why do you
think that?
Where did that come from?
Right, when you're talkingabout Catholicism, that's
(19:29):
interesting.
We don't do that.
Where did that come from?
Or, like you said, that'sactually a really extreme side.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
That's not what a normal practicing catholic um
does well and and I think thethe key is to resist vilifying
the other side.
Um, I went to, I did thisconference, um called frontiers
(19:59):
of democracy and they um wastalking about what we're doing
with all sides, but it was wasinteresting is I listened to a
(20:22):
panel and that was fascinating.
There, you know, it was like600 years ago, a King had made
these two groups, the Hutus andthe Tutsis, and for a good
reason.
I'm not going to try to explainit again, but the King had good
intentions in mind.
And then fast forward and itstarted to be used as.
(20:45):
Have you ever read the book theSneetches, yeah, by Dr Seuss?
Dr Seuss, yes, I think aboutthat book a lot, because it's
like who has a star in theirbelly and who does not, and that
defines who is in and who isout.
And that's how these two kindof fairly arbitrary titles
started to be used in thisculture and the hate was slow,
(21:11):
slowly and methodically built upthat by the time the violence
happened, people weren't allthat surprised, and what I see
in our culture is the beginningsof that.
There was a TikTok video rightafter Trump was elected.
That really disturbed me and itwas a young woman walking
(21:35):
around her neighborhood and shemeant it as a joke.
So generally I'm like all in onjokey things, but this one
bothered me.
She's like walking around kindof pretending like she was
looking at her neighbors andlooking for who was smiling that
day the day after Trump waselected.
Looking for who was smilingthat day the day after Trump was
elected, and if someone seemedlike they were in a good mood,
(21:57):
oh must be, must have voted forTrump.
And now they're on like herblacklist and I just I think
that is the kind of thinking wehave to resist, because I can
tell you that my attitude hasbeen I will not let national
politics rule my personalemotions.
(22:18):
So I might have had a smile Idon't remember how I felt that
day but I might have had a smileon my face that day and not
voted for Trump.
Or I might drink Coca-Cola orPepsi or like there's all these
things that are beingpoliticized and we have to
resist that vilification of eachother.
And I think these things likeall sides or you know, namly, or
(22:41):
anything, that kind of helpsyou break out of your filter
bubble and understand the mediayou're ingesting a little better
, helps you resist that andwhatever habits you can kind of
build into your own life to beless hateful towards things that
(23:02):
are different from you ishelpful to our democracy.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
It's interesting too.
I mean living in Arizona formost of my life.
My family moved here when I wassix, you know we kind of grew
up with like the GoldwaterRepublicans, like you know, and
we have people like Sandra DayO'Connor, who was a Republican
and she, you know, became thefirst woman Supreme Court
justice and I think that, youknow, growing up here really
(23:30):
gave me an appreciation for thepolitical diversity of Arizona.
I think a lot of times peoplelook at electoral maps and
they're like Arizona's red,colorado's blue, and that's what
they are, and it's like it isway, way more complicated than
that.
But I appreciate that you saylike the vilification, because
one of the things I notice is,as soon as we point to somebody
(23:53):
else and say they're doing this,we relieve ourselves of
responsibility and really in ademocracy our responsibility is
to to learn and to understand.
And the vilification of ourneighbors, I think, is, like you
said, like national politics.
National politics is important.
I do not want to downplay that,but our local and state are
(24:15):
really, really important andaffect us on the daily right.
People in my neighborhood, thespeed limits near schools, like
these are the things that affectme and my family.
And when you talked about thattech talk.
I'm like that does make me sad,because what we're doing is
we're lumping a type of voter,or a voter who voted for
(24:37):
candidate A or candidate B, asthis person.
And the more I talk to peoplewho have voted again in 2024,
voted for Trump, voted forHarris the more I have these
conversations, the more Iunderstand why people vote the
way they do.
(24:57):
That doesn't mean I have toagree, but a lot of it has to do
with the media they'reingesting.
So now I can like look again atall sides and be like, if I'm
just looking at this side, I canunderstand why somebody voted
for this candidate, yeah.
Or on the local level, I canunderstand why somebody voted
for this candidate.
Or on the local level, I canunderstand why you know the city
council is mostly this party,or the state government is
(25:20):
mostly this party, and it is.
It makes me sad because I thinkthat the more we point fingers
and blame each other and thevilification of other Americans,
it does.
It does nothing but drive a big, you know hole in our democracy
and it gets rid of civildiscourse and it's just.
(25:43):
It's a hard thing.
So if I'm a teacher, right and Iagain, I love the all sides is
literally for everybody.
Anybody can get on it.
It is not for just educators,it is not for just students.
But if I'm a teacher and I amin a school where I'm noticing
this right in my classroom,purpose sometimes to teach
(26:04):
things because I didn't want oneside or the other to say, oh,
she's this or she's this orshe's trying to indoctrinate
that word, indoctrinate my childinto believing X, y or Z, how
(26:25):
can I, as a teacher, thenutilize what all sides has to
kind of help me?
Again, I still have to teachmedia literacy, right, I still
have to teach current events.
Kids are going to come in andask questions.
It's the best thing about kidsis they come in and they're like
can they do this, right, kids?
You asked me during the Obamaadministration and during the
Trump administration can he dothis?
(26:47):
Yep, we're talking aboutcurrent events.
If I'm a teacher, how canAllsides help me to kind of
navigate this process?
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Well.
So I would encourage anybodywho's out there that's a teacher
, to just first start usingAllsides for yourself.
There's an app that you candownload, that's free, where you
can scroll the news, if that'show you like to get your news.
There's a newsletter you cansign up for if you want to just
(27:18):
get a little briefing everymorning or once a week on kind
of here's what's going on, oryou can just go to our website
and browse the headline roundupsthere, and by headline roundup
what I mean by that is we have ateam that's working 24-7 to
identify the key stories of theday of the hour, look across the
(27:39):
spectrum for what differentorganizations and outlets are
saying about it.
They write a little blurb abouthere's the facts, here's how
the media covered it and here'smaybe some context.
Here's the facts, here's howthe media covered it and here's
maybe some context.
And then they pick three highquality articles from the left,
center and the right that youcan further explore.
(28:01):
That's a headline roundup, andso that's kind of the marquee
thing that's available on oursite and a good way to sort of
get initial or kind of yourdaily news, essentially
especially at the nationalpolitical level.
And so I would start thereunderstand what the resources
(28:22):
are, and then when your studentsso that could be one way that
you introduce your students tonews is you just have them do
the same, right, right, and thenyou're not pushing any one
outlet, any one topic.
There's so many differentawesome excuse me entry points
(28:43):
that I've seen teachers usewhere they've had students read
the news, read all threeperspectives and then pick a
perspective that they agree with, but then they make them
actually speak from the otherperspective, as I was saying, so
you can teach to the news andjust use it for current events.
(29:07):
It can also be really usefulfor that one-off event of what
you're describing.
If a student walks in and sayscan they really do this?
This is happening, it'sthreatening to my community.
My parents are scared.
I want to talk about it becausethat's all I'm thinking about
(29:27):
right now in my life.
You know, and you know as ateacher, I'm not getting any
lesson done today.
The kids are hot about this.
We have to address it.
But then how do I navigate that?
Because of a politicallydiverse classroom and you can
bring up the headline on allsides and have you know, a
really simple thing to do isjust have them read the articles
(29:50):
and then write a reflectionpaper, and that helps them kind
of like, process their ownthoughts.
We also, kind of hot off thepress.
We just posted some guides fordialogue in the classroom that I
can share with you, liz, toshare out in the links, and this
was a collaboration with theHarvard Graduate School of
(30:12):
Education and it's, you know,how to handle awkward or
offensive comments, five stepsto guide a surprise conversation
, how to set the stage for hardconversation.
So then, when they do happen,probably around November, you're
ready.
You're ready, um, so, uh, I cansend all those to you, but
(30:36):
they're meant to be just likesuper quick.
There's even one that'sformatted so that you can kind
of secretly scroll on yourlaptop the talking points, and
they're like nice and big sothat, as you're, you know, sort
of pretending like this is allcoming from you, you're just,
you know, sort of following thisguide, um, so, anyway, um, I
think those are the sorts oftools that we're trying to put
out there for teachers, um,because what we don't want to
(31:02):
happen is what you know.
There's a lot of good stats outthere, especially on ed week, of
the majority of teachers thatare just avoiding it.
Yeah, and I get it like totallyunderstand, especially if you
don't have the backup of youradministrators.
And I do want to say, as aformer administrator if there's
(31:24):
any administrators listening tothis podcast right now you need
to think through what you woulddo if a parent came in
complaining about a teachertalking about something in their
social studies classroom ortheir service classroom or
whatever it is, and be ready forhow you're going to handle that
, because I have seen that gonebad, gone really bad, really
(31:48):
wrong, and we've lost reallygreat teachers because of it,
because the administrator wasn'tprepared with how to respond in
a balanced, even fair way.
So definitely we don't havethat guide yet.
That just gave me an idea thatwe should put something like
that up for the administrator,but I do think that that's
(32:12):
important for administrators tobe ready to handle those
conversations as well like youknow, what did you hear when you
(32:36):
got home?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Here's what happened in class.
Okay, now can we talk about?
You know, if there is an issue,like you know, having the again
having the hard conversations,and I think you're right, I
don't think administrators aretaught.
Somebody comes in hot and saysyour teacher said X, y and Z,
and it's like I really don'tknow what to say.
I do want to go back to whenyou're talking about the
(32:58):
different sides.
So one of the things I learnedfrom Dr Luke Perez, who is one
of our faculty members at ASU,in the School of Civic and
Economic Thought and Leadership,and I do have a blog post that
I will link in is it would be areally amazing thing to split
your class in three.
Uh, because for me, I neverreally knew the politics of my
(33:19):
kids.
I mean, you can kind of figureit out, right, you're a teacher.
Um, my students didn't reallyknow my politics because it
wasn't relevant to the situation.
But dividing kids up, havingthem each read so again, I'll
bring up Colbert again, becausethat's what's happening and
having them, you know, as agroup, each read one of the
headlines that are picked out,and I appreciate, too, that on
(33:40):
the site.
It says like, straight up onthere, like who, like where it's
coming from, right?
So I just clicked it again andit is about um, the Gaza crisis.
One of them's from theassociated One is from the
Associated Press, one's from theTimes of Israel, one's from Fox
News Digital.
But having the kids read it anddo a three sentence summary who
(34:02):
is the author, what are theyarguing and why does that matter
?
Right, and that is you know youcould do like who is the author
?
Well, the author is theAssociated Press and according
to all sides, that is pretty farover on the left.
Fox News says X, y, z, andaccording to all sides, they're
(34:23):
pretty far on the right.
So why did?
Why does that matter?
And it'll help facilitate aconversation with your students
of why are these different.
Because, at the end of the day,media is a business, right?
They get money based on theclicks.
Students can know this, right.
Tiktoks If you're looking atTikTok, a lot of them rage bait
(34:45):
you because you'll click on it.
It's a behavioral thing.
And if you have students, too,that are like, oh, I don't care
about the new, because youalways have kids that are like,
why does this matter.
If something you knowcontroversial, quote unquote
happens in a sports, have them.
Look at the different sides,right, have if it's the NBA or
(35:05):
like the WNBA, because they justhad their all-star.
Like the way things arereported are so different.
But having these conversationswith them are so important.
And one of the things, too I Ihave literally I've used for
nine years is on your websiteunder media bias.
There is a chart that kind ofshows us where these you know
(35:28):
news, um news people land.
Right when CNN is, where Foxnews is, where Forbes is, things
like that.
There's a bias checker Like it.
It really goes into explainingwhy, right, it's not just all
sides.
One day woke up and was likewe're going to put all these
together.
There is actually a system andtalking to students about why
(35:51):
that is important and andlooking at our bias and I do
want to say I always really tryit in the classroom to say bias
is not a bad thing, right, I ambiased to the place where we get
our pizza.
Right, I'm not really open towhere we get our pizza.
We get our pizza from a certainplace.
I like it Great.
We get our pizza from a certainplace.
I like it Great.
(36:11):
That is a bias.
I have a bias because my familyagain is from rural Iowa.
I understand the farming groupof people and we want to order a
pizza.
It has to be a conversation.
It's not everybody is going tohave the same bias.
I do.
I again, as a educator, I lovedthe media bias section of the
(36:47):
site and would use that chartall the time, and I again I see
it floating around on Facebook.
I see teacher groups talkingabout it because it is.
It's a great resource, not justfor teachers but for everybody
and not I definitely have lookedat it and gone oh wow.
You know I do read this exactsame thing every day and maybe I
(37:12):
should try to read something onthe other side or something
that's more center, just to getdifferent information.
So I'm not in my own littleecho chamber.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Yeah, and I want to double down on what you've said
that bias is just inherent towho we are as humans.
It's not bad.
What's bad is when we pretendlike there isn't bias or we
conceal it and so we talk at allsides about like we are
revealing the bias of theseoutlets.
Um, people are probablywondering like how we get come
(37:46):
up with those ratings andespecially the ones on the bias
chart.
There's multiple methods used,so we look at 16 different types
of bias.
We do actually have a wholelesson plan and guide on this on
our website if someone wants todeep dive into it.
Another entry point forstudents is that they go analyze
and come up with what theythink the bias is of an outlet
(38:09):
and then they compare their ownanalysis to all sides.
That's always kind of aninteresting exercise to do if
you're really getting deep intothe media literacy.
But we, so we scan for these 16different types of bias then
and then we use two differentmethods, so one is actually
(38:30):
using experts.
So we we have a diverse,politically diverse set of
people usually six people thatreview the content from these
outlets and then provide arating.
We're just looking at theoutput from these places we're
(38:52):
not analyzing.
Where is their funding?
Who owns them?
Where are they located?
It's just pure content is whatwe are focused on.
And then we also do what'scalled a blind bias survey.
So we have non-experts, justpeople who are out there doing
(39:17):
this for us, um, who they tellus their own bias, and then we
give them a piece of content andthey don't know where it came
from and they rate it, and thenwe have it's very, it's got uh,
some control articles in thereas well from other outlets, so
it's not all from the sameoutlet.
And so we compile the resultsof the blind bias survey and the
expert editorial panel and thenwe combine that into one rating
(39:40):
.
The idea is that sometimesexperts are wrong when it comes
to bias because they're kind ofin there, they're maybe too deep
into it, um, and sometimes justgeneral population is wrong.
So if you combine those twothings, then you're a little bit
closer to the truth, because itis always subjective, um.
(40:01):
And so that's where that's howwe come up with those blind bias
ratings I do like on all ofyour things.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
It says ratings do not reflect accuracy or
credibility only a source'sperspective, like I.
I appreciate that because Ithink that human nature
categorizes things and for us,the easiest categorization or
categorization is good or bad.
So if I'm looking at a chartand I'm looking at what side I
(40:32):
am on, I can say, well, theseare all good and the other ones
are bad.
Where you're just like.
This is not accuracy orcredibility.
We're literally looking attheir content and like, doing it
like that, and everybody isbiased, right.
But the things that can beharmful are the hidden biases or
the pretending that biasdoesn't exist, right, because
(40:57):
that's when things start to getdivisive, that's when we start
to get misled with things.
I mean, there are a lot ofInternet celebrities, I think,
that have become very divisiveand and going down um has, you
know, led people astray, if youwill, um, and I think that can
(41:19):
be harmful, whereas if you canjust say, no, I know this person
leans heavily left, or I knowthis person leans heavily right,
or this person has a religiousor a political agenda, which,
again, are not bad things if youcan recognize that, that's what
it is, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
And I'm glad you brought up credibility, because
there's other ratings agenciesout there that rate the degree
of credibility has been that itis very difficult to rate that
it could, because if you thinkabout it almost like a line
chart, it kind of like bouncesall over the place.
(41:57):
So if it's, you know and I'mnot talking about the outlets
out there that are spewingnonsense and intentionally,
maliciously spewingdisinformation, I'm not talking
about that I'm talking aboutpeople who think that they are
doing good journalism andthey're wrong whether that's
(42:19):
their negligence, not checkingtheir facts, maybe they're too
much in a bubble, whatever it isbut they get the story wrong,
(42:55):
um, and that leads tocredibility kind of bouncing.
It just sort of depends on thetopic.
Um, and bias is a little biteasier.
It's more static.
Um, it doesn't change quite asdramatically over time.
And we made a decision prettyearly on to say you know what we
do really big, deep dives intomisinformation and
disinformation, and we will kindof do the work for you to go
out and like read a lot aboutsomething that seems like a
really controversial narrativeand then write up here's what we
found.
We won't say, and here's thetruth, but we'll then write up.
Here's what we found.
We won't say and here's thetruth.
But we'll say like here's sortof all the things we found and
(43:17):
what you need to weigh whendeciding what really happened
here, um, but we won't write thecredibility because we just
have just we're pretty smallactually and don't have the
capacity for that, and it'salmost like whack-a-mole in a
way if you're trying to do sortof fact-checking type stuff.
And so that's why we've reallyfocused on bias, because we know
(43:40):
we can do that really well in away that's actually useful for
people.
And then I was also going tocomment on influencers.
So we just posted about twomonths ago, our first influencer
bias chart.
Um, we chose to start with xbecause there is such a large
contra large um concentration ofjournalists there, um, and that
(44:04):
took us gosh about four or fivemonths to do um, to figure out.
You know, who are we going torate, what's the criteria that
they're sort of relevant enoughto rate?
And then how do you rate asingle person?
Because people are all over theplace.
They do not, they're notnecessarily consistent in their
(44:29):
bias, like an organization is.
And that was really aninteresting journey, lots of
really.
It was kind of a whole companyeffort to figure this out and it
was really led by JulieMastrini, our director of media
bias, and I think they did agreat job.
(44:52):
It was really well received.
I was sitting on an airplanenext to a guy who just happened
to know about all sides butdidn't know we had released this
influencer chart, and hehappened to get all of his news
on X and he says that's what hedoes he wakes up in the morning,
he scrolls X to get his newsand he, when I showed him the
(45:12):
chart, he goes oh great, I'mgoing to follow some of these on
the other side to make surethat my feed is more balanced.
And that is exactly what I wantpeople to use it for is just
kind of expand what's goingthrough their feed.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Well, and it's interesting to look at this
chart because I mean I canabsolutely see the conversation
of well, so-and-so is on thisside and that's.
There's no way, but we're onlylooking at the content they put
out on X.
So the way these influencers tomaybe show up on TikTok or
Instagram, or again, I'm I'm aGen Xer, so all of these, all of
(45:51):
these different social medias,get really overwhelming.
But it would be an interestingconversation to talk about how
this influencer shows up on Xversus your perception of them,
because you only see them onTikTok.
That's again, a veryinteresting conversation.
And talking about how peopleshow up different places and
(46:15):
humans are humans.
Right, you talked about the youknow credibility.
I always think about when, inthe 1970s, right, people got
their news twice a day.
They got a newspaper and thenthey watched the evening news.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Now everything.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Everything is breaking news.
I feel like, no matter what I'mwatching, there's breaking news
and people want to be the firstto get a new story out because,
again, this is a business andthat's not a good or bad thing,
that's just what it is.
But you want to be the firstone out and sometimes being the
first one out means you don'thave the complete story, and
that's where, again, anotherconversation to have is we get a
(46:57):
story and then what happens?
When it percolates for a coupleof days?
Do we find out more?
Why is that important?
Where do we get our news?
Right, I think a lot of peopledo get theirs on social, because
that's where they're spendingtheir time.
I don't get a newspaper.
I watch the morning news, butI'm not watching the afternoon
news because I'm watching sports.
(47:18):
Or we don't have our TV on,we're doing something else.
But all of these things canexist in a different place,
right?
So, looking at the X influencerbias chart and I will again
link this this it's something toinstead of immediately saying,
nope, this person should be, no,no, no, no.
Why are they showing up on Xthis way?
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
What?
What is there to?
And again it just startsconversations.
We're not looking at right orwrong, we're not looking at good
or bad, we're starting aconversation wrong.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
We're not looking at good or bad.
We're starting a conversation,absolutely, and you know we are
going to go there and lookcross-platform because, you're
right, they show up differentlyand it's super interesting.
And the same way that when wefirst started with traditional
news outlets, seeing thedifferent headlines from the
outlets was really interesting,news outlets seeing the
(48:15):
different headlines from theoutlets was really interesting,
and to see how differently theyemphasize different parts of a
story depending on what theirbias was.
In the same way, like people doshow up differently on
different platforms and it'sfascinating.
So I think you're ontosomething there.
And then you know, what wehaven't even talked about yet is
AI and the fact that we don'teven know if some of it's real.
(48:38):
Right, and that is something wehave been absolutely grappling
with.
How do we use technology tocombat technology in a way, use
technology to combat technologyin a way, and thinking about how
, how can we help peopleidentify if the probability that
(49:00):
something is real Becauseyou'll never be sure, but there
are ways to sort of say likethis is 90% likely to be AI, or
90% likely to be real, or 50, 50.
It's anyone?
Yeah, I'm not sure.
So that's, you know, maybesomething that we could do in
(49:21):
the future that I think would bereally useful for people, but
right now, definitely a sort ofbeing very critical of anything
that you see out there.
I took a quiz that a newsoutlet did on like is this AI or
(49:41):
not, and I only got 60% right,you know, and I went in like, oh
, I'll be great it was.
It was tough.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Well, because it's so again, it's so new and they're
asking you to look at somethingin a snapshot, whereas and I
think I know the one of thethings I really appreciate about
all sides is you guys aren'tjust throwing things out to
throw them out there, like wetalked about this ex-influencer
bias charts months ago.
(50:09):
Right, you're, you're reallytaking time and creating things
that have research behind themand it's not just throwing
things up for the sake of doingit.
It is intentional.
And I think, when we talk aboutmisinformation and
disinformation and for listenerswho don't know the difference,
(50:30):
misinformation is wrong facts,sometimes, most of the time like
accidental, not on purpose.
Disinformation is purposefullyrepresenting something
incorrectly to sway people.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Well, and there's always a truth within
disinformation and that's whatmakes it so dangerous
(51:14):
no-transcript.
And so there's definitely it'spretty dangerous out there.
The other thing I would reallyencourage teachers.
So you know, there's all sides.
There's media literacy, there'sreally thinking critically
about the information you'reingesting.
But there's also and we startedto go into this with, like,
where are you getting your newsof?
What are your informationhabits?
(51:36):
What are your habits on yourphone or your TV with how much
and how often you're taking inthis information?
There's this great teacher thatwas on our advisory board for
all sides and now has startedthis group called disconnect um
in milwaukee, and she it, herapproach, has been is incredible
(52:02):
, um, it's it's really helpingstudents um rewire the
relationship with their screensso that they can have a
healthier life, but then alsoteaching their community how to
do the same, and the method thatshe uses is convening them in
(52:25):
groups.
So she did this with herstudents as a teacher found that
it was very successful, verypopular with the students, and
so she's trying to spread thatto everyone and it really uses
the approach of setting goals,reflecting on those goals,
sharing experiences, listeningto other people's experiences
and then giving alternatives.
(52:45):
So the last 20 minutes of everymeeting they do what's called
handiwork.
So essentially it's just crafts.
It's whatever you want to do,but the kids learn that you get
kind of that really nice calming, dopamine release and
anti-anxiety by doing thingslike knitting and jewelry making
(53:09):
and you know, whatever it isthat you want to do, I have
behind me I do botanicalillustration to calm myself down
.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
So any just anything you can do where you're sort of
creating with your hands in away that feels good to you is an
excellent antidote to phonesand and the anxiety that our
phones give us and we will haveKat on, because I've had a
conversation with her too and Iactually have noticed that the
times where I tend to be on myphone the most actually switch
(53:37):
to embroidery, because I love toembroider.
I again have some behind me andit is like listening to her talk
about that and I can't wait tohave her on, because the crux of
it is is it's not this judgment, it's not this you spend too
much time on your phone, so youneed to do this.
It genuinely is a conversationand and giving alternatives, and
(54:00):
not again blaming people forspending all this time on their
phone.
Like we're not trying to getrid of your phone, we're trying
to create a healthy relationshipwith it so that, in the end,
you feel better.
Yeah, and I love that.
Is there anything else that wemiss that you want to make sure
our listeners have before weleave, because I honestly feel
(54:23):
like we could have a five hourconversation about this.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
The one thing I do want to plug and I'll send you
the link for this, liz we have ajournalism contest coming up,
so we are going to offer theopportunity to any student to
write an all-side style headline, roundup or article, and there
will be three winners.
They'll each get $500 and theopportunity, if they would like,
(54:50):
to be published on all sides,and so, please, I invite you to
have your students participatein this.
It's a great classroom exerciseto just have everybody do it.
We did something like this lastyear and ended up publishing a
junior's article on our site.
That was just awesome andbrilliant, so I'm excited to do
(55:14):
it again this year and I wouldencourage any teachers to check
it out.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
Absolutely, and, again, we will link this in our
show notes.
If you follow the Center forAmerican Civics at ASU, we will
be tagging all sides.
We will be sharing their stuff,because the great thing about
the world of civics is we allwant to share each other's
things because, at the end ofthe day, we want to have a
(55:39):
citizenry that understands ourgovernment, understands these
things, and if they don't, theyknow where to go.
Alice, again, I literally couldsit and talk to you all day
because this stuff is sointeresting for me and I think
that it's it's always timely,right.
So thank you for your time,thank you for your expertise.
Um, and yes, please, allsidescom.
(56:03):
There's so much informationthat, no matter what you're
teaching, or, again, if you wantto download the app, and that's
how you get your news and thenyou can decide what you want to
read.
What a great way to start yourday or end your day.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
Absolutely, and thanks for having me on, liz, I
really appreciate it Okay.
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