Another #MediaLiteracy note:
Yesterday a friend explained how proud he was to not be "biased" in his assessment of the Springfield news. His reasoning? He'd seen videos of spot interviews with locals, so he now had a "balance" of complaints.
What he'd forgotten is that a swarm of pundits were descending after the fact. Those reports weren't really homegrown. But many don't understand the difference between natural & artificial news growth, especially with all the gutting of local newsrooms. /x
The takeaway:
1) Just because a small town / remote region has been highlighted in a news cycle doesn't mean the news is actually from that region.
2) Often, the news cycle is being generated or amplified by people outside the region, for ends that have nothing to do with signal-boosting or empowering people from X region.
3) When in doubt about a whirlwind of a story involving another part of the world, look for *local* reporting. Reporting *on* locals isn't good enough. 2/2