I had already agreed to write this piece for Telemedium and was well under way on the article when the October 24th [1992] issue of TV Guide hit the stands. For those who missed the issue, this was the one with the front page proclaiming "Teaching Kids How to Watch TV." Many of us involved in the media literacy movement had been contacted by the reporter and had assisted in the preparation of this piece. I myself had been interviewed extensively, consulted during the editing of the piece, and I had written dealing with various aspects of media literacy.

The staff of National Telemedia Council and other media organizations around the country, well aware of the enormous circulation of TV Guide looked forward to the publication of the piece in the belief that it could make a significant contribution to the public's awareness of the media literacy movement. While most of us had, in the past, had some experience with telling the press one thing and seeing another in print, we blissfully suspended disbelief, opting instead to believe that this time the press would get it right.

"Point of View" Matters

Before I get down to the reality of what actually found its way into print, let me respond to those of you who are asking, "what has TV Guide got to do with news?" The answer rather depends on how we define news. For our purposes the article in question contained information, that for many readers would have been new. This information had been researched, collected, written, edited and published.

During the process, the reporter had to assemble the facts and opinions from a variety of sources, review them, verify various elements for accuracy about the target audience (reader) and the various time, space and format constraints of the publication. That process radically curtailed the initial length of the story, gutting key facts with the result that a potentially powerful contribution to the media literacy movement was severely undermined and went to press full of inaccuracies and confusion. However, this didn't undermine the power of the piece, which reached TV Guide's extensive readership audience.

I discovered this first-hand. Since the article named me and told readers I was at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, any number of enterprising individuals from all over the country consulted their directory assistants and ended up at the other end of my Darth Vader speaker/telephone. Happily, many of these individuals wanted to buy a copy of my book, which the article referred to but never named. Happily many of these callers were from other publications or television stations wanting to do follow up pieces. Unhappily, all of them fixated on television rather than on media literacy. This was the direct result of the article's failure to put television viewing within the broader context of media education.

Indeed, though the media now pay attention to our movement, it seems to be invariably filtered through their eyes and their perspective. This trend was also evident on March 3rd, 1992 when ABC's American Agenda segment of their evening news, reduced the media literacy movement to a simple case of critical viewing of television. Having been interviewed for the piece and having spoken to numerous individuals whose words and/or faces finally made their way to the screen, the consensus seems to be that the reporters arrived with preconceived assumptions about what the content and format would be. In the end, they merely fitted "reality" into this framework as they constructed their "story."

This experience demonstrates the importance of understanding how news, like other genres, is a constructed text. Working with news analysis is central to any education system that claims to produce responsible citizens for a democratic society. Teachers and media specialists wishing to win support for media literacy in their schools can do so by focusing attention on the critical thinking and viewing skills associated with analyzing the news.