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Episode Summary

With so many options for news consumption these days, it’s hard to know exactly where to focus our attention (and what to believe). There’s world news, national news, and local news; print sources; social media; and then the fact-checking sites, where we can put the accuracy of reports to the test. Host Dr. Melinda Lewis gets a lesson in news literacy with Drexel University media expert and local Emmy Award-winner Michelle McHugh to sift through what’s reliable and what’s questionable, while also shining a spotlight on the HBO series The Newsroom and Philadelphia regional broadcast agencies demonstrating integrity in their reporting practices.

Featured Guest  Michelle McHugh (Program Director and Assistant Teaching Professor, Paul F. Herron Graduate Program, Department of Television & Media Management, Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, Drexel University)

Host and Producer  Melinda Lewis, PhD (Director of Strategy, Pennoni Honors College) 

Dean  Paula Marantz Cohen, PhD                                                                                                                                                                                 

Executive Producer  Erica Levi Zelinger (Director, Marketing & Media)

Producer  Brian Kantorek (Associate Director, Marketing & Media)

Research and Script  Melinda Lewis, PhD

Audio Engineering and Editing  Brian Kantorek

Original Theme Music  Brian Kantorek

Production Assistance  Noah Levine

Social Media Outreach  Ka’Neisha Davis and Olivier Jacques

Graphic Design  Estelle Guillot

Logo Design  Michal Anderson

Additional Voiceover  Malia Lewis

Recorded October 25, 2023 in 155 Bentley Hall, Pennoni Honors College, Drexel University. Pop, the Question is a production of Marketing & Media in Pennoni Honors College at Drexel University. The views expressed in this podcast are not necessarily those of Drexel University or Pennoni Honors College.

Copyright © 2023 Drexel University

TRANSCRIPT

Melinda Lewis:

Welcome to Pop, The Question, a podcast that exists at the intersection of pop culture and academia. We sit down and talk about our favorite stuff through the lenses of what we do and who we are. From Pennoni Honors College at Drexel University, Dr. Melinda Lewis here, I'm your host.

I am here with Michelle McHugh, who spent more than a decade in television news, won six regional Emmys and is a program director for Drexel University's television and media management graduate program, and we're going to be talking about media literacy.

Hey, Michelle.

Michelle McHugh:

Hi.

Melinda Lewis:

Let's get literate.

Michelle McHugh:

Okay.

Melinda Lewis:

I always like starting with roots, when did journalism get you in its grasp or maybe you got it in your grasp?

Michelle McHugh:

So I started undergrad at University of North Carolina Greensboro. I'm from North Carolina originally. And I started as a French major.

Melinda Lewis:

Oh, interesting.

Michelle McHugh:

Always wanted to move to France, wanted to immerse myself in the language. Got in my first class and realized that I don't know enough French to cut it right now. So I started looking at classes and communications and quickly found my way to broadcast journalism. I had an internship at WGHP in North Carolina, High Point, North Carolina, and that's when it really clicked with me that, oh, this is something I really, really could see myself doing. Telling stories, communicating with people, educating people, kind of being a warrior for truth if you will, which is really what old school journalism is all about. And still the real, true, pure journalists still have that mindset as well, just uncovering the truth for people.

And that's when it really clicked. I started writing, I started producing newscasts, and I just kind of found my love and my passion for writing and writing facts.

Melinda Lewis:

Can you talk a little bit more about the work of putting together a story, particularly for broadcast?

Michelle McHugh:

You just talk to people, I mean, it sounds simple. But you have an idea for a story, usually it's because of something you've read or something you've heard and you've kind of explored it on your own a little bit and you've determined, okay, this would be a good story.

For television, it has to be something that's visual, so you have to make sure there are pictures, pretty pictures to go with it and sometimes not pretty unfortunately. But it's really just talking to people and trying to get as many different voices as you can to corroborate what you think is happening.

And a lot of times you'll find out that what you thought when you started with the story is not necessarily how it ends up. And if it's a story that has any kind of legal ramifications or could, then you make sure that you back that up with evidence from whether it's an authority figure, a police officer, a PIO, public information officer, or if it's a hospital, someone who's in PR there who's charged with making sure that you're getting the facts that the hospital wants to give out.

And that gets fuzzy as well because then you also have to go in and confirm all of that because a lot of times people will tell us, whether it's just in conversation, whether it's actually an official press conference, they'll just tell you the nice shiny parts that they want you to know.

And I liken that to the Facebook world or social media world. We don't necessarily put all of our ugly stuff on social media. We polish things up to put them on social. And I think a lot of times we get sucked into that idea that, oh my gosh, Melinda's life is so amazing, she has nothing negative going on and look at me over here. And it's this fallacy of what life is really about.

Melinda Lewis:

Yeah, there's a really great Portlandia sketch of people watching somebody else's social media feed and they're on vacation, and then they decide that they're going to do the same thing, and they don't have a good time at all.

Speaker 3:

Everyone on the internet, they're not having as great a time as you think they are.

Speaker 4:

I guess people are just cropping out all the sadness.

Melinda Lewis:

Which I think is poignant because you are not going to put on your warts and all in these social media spaces for people to consume, which is weird.

Michelle McHugh:

And some people do, and then that gets uncomfortable. We've all seen those posts that are just like, oh, that's so sad, but I don't really want to read that right now because it's bringing me down. So I understand why people do it. And I love social media, I don't want anybody to think that I'm a Facebook hater or an Instagram hater.

Melinda Lewis:

Yeah. We're taking down the metaverse with this podcast.

Michelle McHugh:

Exactly. It's just going to implode right after this.

Melinda Lewis:

This is what they're going to say on Reddit.

Michelle McHugh:

I know, it's scary.

Back in the day, you could just watch that one newscast or read the paper and know that I'm educated now about what's going on in my world. Now we have all these different sources coming at us nonstop. And a lot of times it's so easy to get caught in an echo chamber where you're just reading the things that you're seeking out.

And so these people who are getting sucked into this, they're just reading the page up and down vertically. And to really make sure what you're reading is factual, it's just so important to read laterally. Which really just means open up a lot of tabs if you're browsing and try to find the same information in three or four different places, and make sure those places are reputable. And that's a hard thing to do sometimes. It's really difficult to filter through all the noise and the purposeful, misconstrued information.

Melinda Lewis:

I think media literacy is thrown around, I feel like a lot of people are talking about media literacy, but in terms of defining media literacy, what are we talking about?

Michelle McHugh:

I mean, to me it's about making sure that what you're consuming is factual. And to do that, making sure you're taking that deep dive that a lot of times journalists take. I think back in the day, back when I was producing newscasts, before social media was really as prevalent as it is now, you could watch the evening news and know that, okay, I trust this. I know that I'm understanding pretty much what's going on in my world right now and in the broader world.

Speaker 5:

As soon as that whistle blows, I'm out of here because at five o'clock I want to be home with Action News.

Speaker 6:

I don't punch a clock, but I still stick to a schedule like watching Action News at five o'clock,

Speaker 7:

Five o'clock, meat loaf's in the oven, the dog's been fed and the kids are doing homework. Now I'm going to relax and enjoy Action News.

Speaker 8:

(Singing).

Melinda Lewis:

Was there a switch where that became more of a thing where we went from trained journalists to more so pundit opinion-based?

Michelle McHugh:

Locally it's less, I always tell people, if you're going to watch a newscast or read a paper, if you're in the Philadelphia area, the Philadelphia Inquirer, watch CBS3 or NBC10 or 6abc or Fox 29. And that's been a big education piece for me for people, is teaching people that the owned and operated Fox Station is not Fox News. Two totally different things. And a lot of people blur that. They just can't tell the difference.

Speaker 9:

Who do you think you are? What new show did you ever produce or anything else for that matter?

Speaker 10:

Mary, you don't have to be a chicken to judge an egg.

Speaker 9:

Have you no sense of proportion? Criticizing a multimillion dollar movie is one thing, but to publicly attack the individual workers at a tiny television station who are simply doing the best job they can is nothing but sadistic bullying by an arrogant snob. Now hit him.

Michelle McHugh:

I couldn't tell you when the switch really happened, but I know as we have more and more sources available, for some, it has become an entertainment venue as opposed to delivering the facts and data that people need to get on with their lives day to day.

Melinda Lewis:

And maybe the switch has been mostly me noticing, or as I grow older being like, this doesn't seem like the Cronkite of old. Not that I grew up with Walter Cronkite-

Michelle McHugh:

But it sounds great.

Melinda Lewis:

Yeah, yeah. But that was to me, when people looked back like that, as journalism.

Walter Cronkite:

Old anchorman, you see, don't fade away, they just keep coming back for more. And that's the way it is. I'll be away on assignment and Dan Rather will be sitting in here for the next few years. Goodnight.

Speaker 11:

This has been the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite.

Michelle McHugh:

So one thing locally as far as your local news stations, something that one station in Philadelphia does so well, and that's 6abc in Philadelphia, is just that consistency of who you're seeing on the news, Jim Gardner. And then how, when Jim Gardner retired, how there was a whole buildup of who would take his place, and it's a trusted voice and a trusted person.

Jim Gardner:

Serving the people, you, the people of the Tri-State area with responsible and unbiased journalism. This is our mission now and in the future. And if we falter, you'd better let us know for your benefit and for ours. Brian Taff will be sitting in this chair tomorrow night at six, and I won't be terribly surprised if he is still sitting here decades from now. Funny how that seems to happen here at Action News. For the entire Action News team, I'm Jim Gardner, goodnight.

Michelle McHugh:

This goes back to something as simple as the theme song for the show. We all know it, right?

Melinda Lewis:

Yeah.

Michelle McHugh:

And how recognizable it was for people for decades. And at one point, Action News changed the theme song, and after the first newscast where they had the new theme song, viewers called the station, this was before emailing the station, they called. And they just lit the lines up that they didn't like the song. By the next newscast, they went back to the old song.

Melinda Lewis:

Oh, wow.

Michelle McHugh:

And it is still the theme song that they use today. It sounds cheesy because it's music, but it's recognizable. There's this feeling of trust, it's believable, it's reliable. And it goes far from the theme song, it is the same faces you see on that newscast have been on that newscast for decades. And if they haven't, they've been woven into the lineup very strategically.

They're also very good at covering community events, not just the bad stuff that happens, but also the good stuff. And that's what I wish we could focus a little more on. But we've heard that term, if it bleeds, it leads. And that's very true. It's still very true. Local stations are trying to do more and more positive news, positive coverage. And 6abc has been the powerhouse station in this market for decades.

Speaker 12:

Here's our first stop in Philadelphia, that's Independence Hall, and there's Ethel and the kids and, oh, well, that's just a TV news van going by there. Oh, now here's Ethel and the kids on the art museum steps. And oh, there's another one of those news vans again. Oh, there's Ethel eating one of those soft pretzels. Oh, now we took a ride up to the State Capitol for the day, and I got a great shot of that news van again. Oh, now here we are going to Atlantic City, this is ...

Speaker 13:

Nobody covers the Delaware Valley like Action News.

Speaker 12:

And there is that news van again.

Michelle McHugh:

There's that news van again. That's their slogan. And sure enough, they go into the communities, they do a positive story, and it always gets on the air. Stations are trying, I see them trying to swing their coverage to more of a positive. CBS in Philadelphia, the O&O here, has a new mantra, the heartbeat in every story. So if there's a negative story they have to cover, they're trying to find the positive side of it. So let's say there's a drug related shooting in a certain area of Philadelphia. Then they'll cover that, but then they'll also go and find that grassroots nonprofit that's trying to make a difference, especially for the children of the city and the people growing up here.

Speaker 14:

(Singing).

Speaker 15:

Hey, it's your mom. I have a question about that podcast you do. Are you on the Instagram or the Twitter or the Facebook? If I have an idea for the podcast, how do I get in touch with you? Love you. Bye.

Melinda Lewis:

What's up, Mom. Yeah. So you can find us on all those things actually, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Just go to Pop Quest Pod on any one of those and follow. If you want to send us ideas, you can either go over to our website and leave us a message at popqpodcast or you can get us directly at popq@drexel.edu. You can actually find us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher. I can help set it up when I get home. But then you have to promise me to rate and review. All right, love you. Bye.

Speaker 15:

(Singing).

Melinda Lewis:

Are there any texts like movies, television shows, anything that you think captures the work of journalism right?

Michelle McHugh:

The Newsroom, obviously things are sensationalized to be in that show. But television is such a big world, it's a big profession, but it's a small group of people really who network throughout the country. There are relationships in newsrooms that kind of get in the way of judgment sometimes. There are hard decisions to make. And I think Sorkin really got it right when he showed the importance of standing up for something you believe in.

Speaker 16:

There's nothing that's more important in a democracy than a well-informed electorate.

Speaker 17:

I just want to make sure you know you're still on this side of the door.

Speaker 16:

When there's no information, or much worse wrong information, it can lead to calamitous decisions and clobber any attempts at vigorous debate. That's why I produce the news.

Speaker 17:

We're all grateful to you.

Speaker 16:

You're spinning out of control.

Speaker 17:

No, I'm not.

Speaker 16:

You're terrified you're going to lose your audience and you'd do anything to get them back. You're one pitch meeting away from doing the news in 3D.

Speaker 17:

This isn't nonprofit theater, it's advertiser supported television. You know that, right?

Speaker 16:

I'd rather do a good show for a hundred people than a bad one for a million, if that's what you're saying. You know what you left out of your sermon? That America is the only country on the planet that since its birth has said over and over and over that we can do better. It's part of our DNA. People will want the news if you give it to them with integrity. Not everybody, not even a lot of people. 5%. And 5% more of anything is what makes the difference in this country, so we can do better.

Michelle McHugh:

That doesn't always happen, right? That's the Sorkinism coming into it. That's kind of wrapped into that Hollywood style of things.

Melinda Lewis:

And continually pushing for truth.

Michelle McHugh:

Continually.

Speaker 18:

Anchors having an opinion isn't a new phenomenon. Murrow had one, and that was the end of McCarthy. Cronkite had one, and that was the end of Vietnam.

Speaker 17:

I'm not those guys.

Speaker 18:

I'm betting all my money on you're wrong. You know what, kiddo, in the old days of about 10 minutes ago, we did the news well. You know how? We just decided to.

Melinda Lewis:

And how do we evaluate reputable? because I feel like a lot of people are like, "Well, I read sources from all over. I have a blog that I go to all the time from somebody that I trust." But it's also somebody who's like, "I got this information you didn't even know existed." Or, "This is stuff that the mainstream won't tell you." Which to them makes it more reputable. So how do we evaluate reputability?

Michelle McHugh:

That's a great question because it's so hard. I would think first you would start with those .edus, .orgs, and the other places you can go is just making sure that you are going to some of the more, and I say reputable because I feel like I know what they are and a lot of people don't, but Wall Street Journal is highly ranked as being a very trusted source. PolitiFact. FactCheck.org. Poynter is an institute based on journalism that has a lot of great articles about just different things going on in the world. Any of those fact check sites. I go to Snopes a lot of times with students, just more for pop culture things. So there's just digging involved and making sure you're finding those pages.

Melinda Lewis:

I was just about to ask, what do you think the biggest hindrance is to media literacy? And I feel like digging might be part of it is that it requires work to do it.

Michelle McHugh:

It requires a lot of work. I've even fallen into the trap of reading something and repeating it to my husband. He's like, "Did you check that out because that doesn't sound right." And I'm like, "Well, let me go look. Maybe not."

But the digging is the hard part. It takes work. It makes the person who's consuming this information, it puts the onus on them to do the work and to admit that they might not know what's going on. And I think that's just become so much more prevalent in the current political environment and fake news, fake media, really those terms really had an impact on journalism and the trustworthiness that consumers feel is out there.

Speaker 17:

Sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons, we passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed. We cared about our neighbors. We put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases. And we cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn't scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed.

Melinda Lewis:

Do you think that there was a particular era where media literacy was at its peak, or has this been an ongoing struggle that has just gotten progressively, to put it officially, wackadoo?

Michelle McHugh:

I feel like there's always been a distrust of media, but it's been smaller, and before we had all these different places to read what other people are saying and thinking and creating, it was just kind of a small pocket that wasn't talked about as much. But now it's out there and it's allowed those wackadoos, who've always been here, a platform and an audience.

Melinda Lewis:

One of the other aspects that I was thinking of as I was preparing for this conversation was also thinking about who is considered a journalist. Because I feel like that categorization has been just thrown around of like "Joe Rogan, I'm a journalist because I have a podcast," or podcasters kind of blending this line between journalism and podcasting. Or pundits on TV saying, "Well, I'm on this show, so I'm a journalist." How does that affect these questions of reputability or creating a sense of confusion as to how to trust sources or muddling the space of what is and isn't and who is and isn't somebody trustworthy?

Michelle McHugh:

It is muddled. And my advice to any consumer of journalism would be to look for those people who don't give their opinions. If you're giving your opinion on a story, then I don't feel like you can be called a journalist. A journalist is very black and white, here are the facts, we're going to report them. And then you as the audience member, you as the consumer, viewer, reader, whatever it is, you determine how you feel about that. There are so many examples we could go into with these pundits on television who call themselves journalists, but that's not what a true journalist is.

Speaker 19:

Look at the time, and you with places to go, people to see, how will you stay informed through your busy day?

Speaker 32:

(Singing).

Speaker 19:

Smashing.

Michelle McHugh:

We're talking about a shift from the days of there were three or four options of where to get information, whether that was a newspaper in your neighborhood or three or four newspapers or three or four television broadcasts or three or four radio shows. That has now exploded into this metaverse, that we were talking about earlier, where there are endless options. I wrote down this fact because I knew I would not remember the number correctly. But according to IBM, 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data are created every day.

Melinda Lewis:

Quintillion?

Michelle McHugh:

Quintillion. That equals five trillion books a day of new content. Now, that's not all news, that's new content, it can be video, pictures, words, online. But you're trying to cut through all that to try to figure out what the truth is. And it's very easy to fall into this rut of oh, that's what I thought, yeah, absolutely, I was right. As opposed to, it's hard for any of us to admit that we're wrong. I think it's-

Melinda Lewis:

Well, that's because I've never been wrong in my life.

Michelle McHugh:

Well, yes, I could see that.

Melinda Lewis:

Yeah, thank you.

Michelle McHugh:

But it's very hard for-

Melinda Lewis:

Other people.

Michelle McHugh:

Other people to admit that, oh, maybe I wasn't right about that. So they're going to lead themselves to that voice. But we're going, talking about you're going back to your shift, we're going from three or four sources to five trillion books a day.

Melinda Lewis:

That's bonkers. And I was thinking in terms of, when you were talking about new pieces of content, I'm thinking about how much YouTube videos, how many threads are posted, and how the algorithms, as much as we're talking about social media, create these wormholes so that it's easier to not even have breaks to take a breath. You can just continually watch video to video to video. And there's more and more evidence of those videos getting more and more extreme. What would you say are the steps toward becoming more media literate? Here are the starting points and let's move forward.

Michelle McHugh:

Yeah, I think the first thing you read, the first question you should ask yourself, is it too good to be true? Is it too weird? Does it not even make sense? And then start digging. And when digging, I just mean we're all on our phones or iPads, our computer or laptops all day long, just open a few tabs and start searching, whatever your favorite search engine is, search and see what you can find. And then start looking for those what I call reputable sources. And just making sure that you can find that information repeated somewhere that's not necessarily a social media platform.

Speaker 19:

Viral images claim to reveal what caused the Maui wildfires. Ariande Tilley is here to verify if those images are legit or not.

Ariande Tilley:

The wildfires that swept through Maui are the deadliest in US history in more than a century. On social media-

Michelle McHugh:

Did the Maui fires really only burn things that were not blue? That was a big TikTok.

Melinda Lewis:

Oh, I didn't even-

Michelle McHugh:

TikTok hoax, that a couple of people forwarded to me. And I'm like, that doesn't seem right, so let's go read on that a little bit.

Melinda Lewis:

Fire can't see.

Michelle McHugh:

Yes, exactly. Well, supposedly it's a special chemical that didn't burn anything blue.

Melinda Lewis:

Oh, I see.

Speaker 20:

Hey guys, this is the last episode I'm going to do for a while, but it should be a pretty good one. It's things that did not burn during the fire. I went through hours of footage. And it was pretty interesting what I found. Here are the famous umbrellas, these are actually Tommy Bahama umbrellas. And I have pictures of these before the fires, so you can see what they actually used to look like. Not very different now. And then the sole surviving car on Front Street-

Melinda Lewis:

Is part of the solution like policy and laws that will help kind of regulate these things or do you think that that will push us into another potentially worse situation?

Michelle McHugh:

That's interesting because there's a fine line between regulation and control. We want to enjoy that freedom of speech, that is one of the many things that makes America so beautiful. I think there should be some regulation. I think regulation would be better served to make sure that every American has access to the internet, affordable access to the internet. And that way just making sure that children can grow up learning about media literacy and lateral reading and using that on a daily basis.

Melinda Lewis:

I think the steps that you've provided are things that are evergreen in the sense of things that we can do. But how do you navigate that ever shifting landscape?

Michelle McHugh:

Yeah, it's so hard. It's hard for me to keep up with everything that's out there. Just making sure that you're on top of things going on in the world, that you're reading, that you're educating yourself, that you're not just listening to something somebody else says. And maybe take a beat before you jump on that next social media platform.

Melinda Lewis:

I think also asking, if I may add, to continually ask questions I think is important part of it, regardless of whether it aligns with your stuff or not.

Michelle McHugh:

Yeah, be a lifelong learner. We love that term in academia, lifelong learning. But it's true. We have to continually equip ourselves with information to make sure that what we're sharing with one another is true.

Melinda Lewis:

But I also think that, to go back to your earlier point about education, education has made it not fun to learn or that we've really drained the joy out of learning institutionally. So I would also like learning to be forever fun, and let's not drain the life out of it.

Michelle McHugh:

I think that there's some of us, and I'm going just from talking to you today, I'm pretty sure that your classes are fun, right?

Melinda Lewis:

I hope so.

Michelle McHugh:

I hope mine are too. Not all the time, but most of the time.

Melinda Lewis:

I at least try. And I think that's the big thing.

Michelle McHugh:

And we have to just teach our students that learning can be fun. But the more teachers and professors can just relate to their students and create fun moments, the more the students are going to connect and not just check a box for an assignment.

Melinda Lewis:

People are interested in doing their own research, but if we can guide towards the sources and the types of research, and not necessarily like everything is bad except for the stuff that I want to be true, that would be lovely.

Michelle McHugh:

Yeah. People are doing research, a lot of people are doing research in a way that their digging leads them to their own beliefs. And we have to be, I guess, we have to dig a bigger hole and look for different pieces of evidence. Do whatever you can to get the truth.

Melinda Lewis:

And the truth is sexier than proving or disproving.

Michelle McHugh:

It is.

Melinda Lewis:

That's what you did.

Michelle McHugh:

And it also takes a big person to admit that you don't have all the answers.

Melinda Lewis:

Yeah. And I feel like we just need to be better at saying I don't know.

Michelle McHugh:

That's hard, isn't it?

Melinda Lewis:

I don't know what I think. I don't know what that means.

Michelle McHugh:

That's hard for a lot of people. I think that's a great example of what we have to do as consumers, read this, read that, and then read more to come in the middle. Because somewhere in the middle is where those bits of truth are going to fall out.

Melinda Lewis:

Thank you so much. This was so great.

Michelle McHugh:

This was awesome. Thanks.

Melinda Lewis:

Yeah, I loved this.

Michelle McHugh:

Thanks for having me.

Melinda Lewis:

Of course. Pop, the Question was researched and hosted by Dr. Melinda Lewis. Our theme music and episodes are produced by Brian Kantorek, with additional audio production by Noah Levine. All of this was done under the directorship of Erica Levi Zelinger, the deanship of Dr. Paula Marantz Cohen and the Pennoni Honors College at Drexel University.

Speaker 21:

I know it's important, I do, I honestly do. But we talking about practice, man. What are we talking about? Practice. We talking about practice, man.