Some students question how they could use their knowledge from some courses in the “real world”. It is safe to say this was not one of those courses. This course involved my classmates and I to analyze the news during most classes. We learned about different types of news and how to dedicate unreliable news sources. We discussed topics like misinformation, disinformation and how the term “fake news” was over-said and lost its meaning.

In this courses, we not only talked about different types of news, but we were also supposed to keep up with the news and discuss current events. We would talk about the events themselves and how they were portrayed in the articles. Therefore, we were responsible for deciphering different types of news sources from others and apply them to current news.

Throughout this course, I learned how important it is for people to stay up to date and to understand the news. For instance, some people do not know the difference between editorials and hard news or that bias isn’t necessarily a bad thing all of the time. With all of this in mind, I learned a lot about the news and how it works. I also learned that staying informed and receiving news from different sources is important. Ever since I took this course, I have made more of an effort to consume news in order to stay informed.

Above is a paper I wrote for this course where I discussed my thoughts from doing a “news blackout”. My professor asked us to avoid consuming any type of news for a few days and make notes of how we felt during the process. We were then told to write up our thoughts in a reflection paper. This was a very interesting assignment and one I had to keep in mind each day until my news blackout was over. In this paper, I discuss how prevalent the news is in my life and how it felt strange avoiding it. I also learned how thankful I am for having the ability to stay informed about my country and the world.