The New York Times published an article about pollution in China, a topic that many know about. This article wasn't about the air pollution, however, but about the soil that has been polluted and how it will affect food supply in an overcrowded country.
The article is also printed in the New York Times paper, and is not an opinion piece. The New York Times also has an ISSN number, which the article provided on evaluating news sources mentions as a way to verify the information it is giving you.
Also noted in the article is actual research that has been conducted around the study. External links bring you to the research that was done, however because this article was about in China, the article is in Chinese. I cannot verify is the research is accurate, but I strongly believe this is an issue of a language barrier as opposed to incorrect information.
The only part of the article that I question is when they cite another news source. Though this news source is the national news source of China, it is important to know that China does not observe the same freedom of press as we do in the states, so the data could be false or altered by the government.
Aside from my one hesitation about referencing the national Chinese newspaper, I think that this article is factual. Unfortunately, however the internet does not always provide information such as this. As the helpful hints article mentions, anyone can create an online 'news zine' and post their opinion as if it were a fact. With fewer people being literate with new media and not understanding that they need to check their facts, it is too easy for false news to spread. Though it may not seem like a major issue, false news spreading rapidly through social media could affect issues within our country, or world.
Social media was a huge part of the last election, but with everyone posting true and false facts online, it can be difficult to understand what a candidates real intentions are. Long term, this could impact elections, and who people are voting for.
Hopefully, as time goes on more and more users will learn to evaluate sources as we are in this class, before all of the 'news' were are getting has strange biases and unclear messages.
Wong, E. (2014, April 17). One-Fifth of China’s Farmland Is Polluted, State Report Finds. Retrieved April 18, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/world/asia/one-fifth-of-chinas-farmland-is-polluted-state-report-finds.html?ref=science
Cheryl,
ReplyDeleteAs I read your justification, I agree with you that a translation of the Chinese source would be helpful to further validating this story. I also think that an important aspect when validating a story of this nature is verifying when the research was done. The dates of the findings would be crucial to know if the findings and conclusions drawn are corresponding. Just as you noted, the last presidential election showed that environmental issues can be drawn into political debates and therefore findings and opinions can be concluded for inclusion in a political dialog.
The amount of exposure an article the New York Times can have is an important factor in evaluating stories, even those that seem valid. We must question the motivation for a story being written. As you noted, during times of elections, not only are articles that contain “facts” about candidates circulated on social media sites, stories about political issues that divide parties are also written. The background of an author can sometimes be helpful in evaluating this.