Double-checking the news
Your editorial “Media literacy more vital than ever” (July 3, page 6) absolutely speaks to the one serious flaw in today’s education system from entry to exit ... the failure of educators to adequately prepare their young charges for entry into the “real world” of manipulative communication.
As a former public relations professional who has now taught university-level communication courses for nearly two decades, I continue to be amazed at the willingness of my students — and others, I might add — to accept and repeat things that they read, see or hear in the media without questioning the validity of that information.
It has become patently obvious that China (for those in Taiwan) and Russia (for those of us in the US) have enthusiastically adopted disinformation campaigns as THE way to spread false information and, in so doing, persuade those who accept without questioning that information to take actions that, in many instances, are harmful both to themselves and, potentially, to their fellow citizens.
I am preparing to teach an organizational communication course at the University of Tampa, and I can assure you that my all-too-familiar mantra of “check and double-check what you read, see or hear before passing on that information to others” will be front and center in my discussions.
Let us hope that our fellow citizens, wherever they might be, do the same.
Kirk Hazlett
Adjunct professor of
communications and public relations,
University of Tampa, Florida
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