Misinformation has been a hot topic for years, prompting discussions on whether students know how to spot biases in news.

With the rise of social media, how people get their news has changed greatly. While many people of older generations prefer getting news from traditional news outlets, college students lean more towards getting news from social media.

For many students, this is due to the ease of using social media. Alicia Westmoreland, a senior Spanish major, said that they prefer to get their news from Instagram reels.

“I typically see something on Instagram and then will go and double check it,” Westmoreland said.

Westmoreland added that they do not watch any one particular news source, but instead use Instagram’s algorithm to rely on suggesting content. 

Chau Vu, a foreign transfer freshman and marketing major, similarly got their news from reels.

Some professors at GCSU were wary of getting news mainly through social media. Benjamin Clark, senior lecturer of political science, brought up the fact that independent news sources on social media may not be as easy to check who is paying them as major news organizations.

While OpenSecret, a site that can show what parties donate to a company or candidate and what lobbying they have done, this information is generally not readily available for nonpolitical candidates or corporations, such as a random TikTok or Instagram user. Clark pointed out that there is a money incentive to be had with being the first to get a story out, and that algorithms may boost more outlandish or angry stories. 

At the same time, however, independent news sources may have more freedom to cover topics that traditional media outlets may purposely avoid covering. Each media type has its pros and cons, and most people felt that aiming for the middle and getting a bit of each type was best.

Chau Vu said she enjoyed Ground News, a news source that Michael Dreher, professor of mass communication, also suggested students use. Ground News lists how much each party is covering a news issue and can additionally show what stories are blindspot stories, which are covered only by one party but not the other.

“I encourage people to look at a variety of different kinds of sources, and there is an app that makes that very easy to do,” Vu said. “The nice thing about Ground News is it will tell you more details about how the story is being covered. It will often give you options to say if you’re looking at this particular kind of news, you might want to consider these other kinds of stories to go with it.”

Teachers overall leaned much more traditional in how they received news than students did, with most professors getting their news from trusted major news sites. 

GCSU professors generally watched popular traditional news sources. Dreher and Godwin, professors of communication and sociology respectively, both read the Washington Post and The New York Times. Professors also placed importance on reading independent news and right-leaning news as well, with Godwin listening to the TV program,“Democracy Now!” for example. 

GCSU professors strongly urged students to read stories from both left and right leaning sources to get a full picture of current issues. 

“All people are better served by having a variety of high quality left and right or liberal and conservative sources. There are some things one side, even when from a high quality source, may miss,” said Clark.

The most commonly listed news sources that the interviewed students thought were biased were  Fox News on the right and CNN on the left. AP News was most commonly believed to be unbiased.

There were a range of different responses on how to avoid or spot bias in news.

“Recognize the difference between editorializing and factual statements. Students often can struggle with this,” said Clark.

Westmoreland and other students noted that more flattering language is a common way to spot bias. Vu pointed out that what a news source seems to cover the most can also be a sign of bias. 

Sandra Godwin, professor of sociology, believes that a liberal arts education helps people spot bias in news. 

“Ideally students can read anything because they will have the literacy to tell what is good versus not,” Godwin said.

Fact checking information in articles, using OpenSecret or Ground News to check biases and looking at both left and right leaning sources are all ways students can avoid biased news while remaining up to date.

“We all are biased in some form or another,” Dreher said. “A news source may write leaning left or right, but you should be able to verify if the data is viable or not.”