Evaluating Sources: Evaluating News Sources

Image source: Screen-capture taken from American Press Institute

Tom Rosenstiel, the executive director of the American Press Institute, suggests six questions media consumers can ask to verify the trustworthiness of their information:

1. What type of content is it?
Is it a news report, opinion piece, or company/political advertising in disguise? Identifying content type and who is behind the literature will help you uncover the motivation.

2. What sources are being cited?
If the information refers to research conducted by a think-tank, track down the study and determine its validity. Look for research methodology, who might benefit from the study, and if there are any special interest groups who might be behind the project.

3. How is the evidence evaluated?
See if the literature explains how the evidence was discovered and introduced to the evaluation process. Be wary of literature that says “scientists agree…” or “research suggests...” without backing it up.

4. Is the reporter’s argument proven by evidence?
Except for straight narratives of an event, most news reports will have some sort of interpretation or a point to the story. See if the point is proven by evidence.

5. Is there anything missing?
Do you notice anything left out of the story? Is there an explanation for any missing piece of information?

6. What knowledge have you acquired?
Rosenstiel urges news consumers to take time and think about what they have learned - if anything - after clicking on a headline and reading a story.

Image Source: Modified screen-capture taken from the National Post.

Click here to read the full article.

1. What type of content is it?

• A report covering an Angus Reid survey from a Canadian national newspaper company known for its right-centre bias
• Headline appeals to readers’ emotions by using the word “lazy”
• Emphasis is on negative reactions to the idea of guaranteed minimum income

2. What sources are being cited?

• Article cites the Angus Reid survey Basic Income? Basically unaffordable, say most Canadians
• Link is included in the article

3. How is the evidence evaluated?

• Angus Reid conducted the survey electronically using online forms
• Appears to be a closed-question survey
• Such surveys may receive responses from participants with limited knowledge or opinions about a particular issue ¹

4. Is the reporter’s argument proven by evidence?

• Article adheres closely to the survey results as published by Angus Reid
• Headline using the word “lazy” is deceiving
  • Survey question as presented on the Angus Reid website asks whether “a guaranteed income program would discourage people from working.”

5. Is there anything missing?

• Provides little mention of studies/experiments that show positive results, despite existing literature on the positive outcome on guaranteed minimum income studies. Click on the links for examples:
  • The Town with No Poverty: The Health Effects of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field Experiment
  • Basic Income: A Transformative Policy for India

Source:

1. Julien, Heidi. (2008). Survey research. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412963909.n441

Image source: Screen-capture taken from Slate

Click here to read the article.

1. What type of content is it?

• Blog post from online news magazine Slate, known for its left-leaning bias
• Reports on the mandate of charitable project GiveDirectly, which provides basic income to impoverished populations in parts of Africa
• Authors state they are the founders of the project
• Provides both sides of the argument for minimum income

2. What sources are being cited?

• Mostly scholarly articles, government/United Nations policy papers, and some media sources including The New York Times

3. How is the evidence evaluated?

• With the exception of newspaper articles, most of the policy and research papers are written by experts in the field
• Many papers are based on data collected from studies/experiments

4. Is the reporter’s argument proven by evidence?

• While the article is biased toward supporting providing basic income for the poor, it argues that its effectiveness still has to be proven.

5. Is there anything missing?

• The authors state explicitly that they do not know what the outcome will be, but that their experiment is a crucial step toward ending poverty.

In a piece on national pharmacare, the CBC Radio program The Current interviewed Steve Morgan, professor of health policy at the University of British Columbia, who promotes a National Pharmacare program. The program also interviewed Yanick Labrie from the Fraser Institute, who advocates allowing drug companies to set prices with less government intervention in keeping costs down. Labrie has also written an opinion piece on the subject of National Pharmacare in the Financial Post.

Misleading Information

To strive for objectivity, journalists will often interview or quote experts from both sides of a debate. Still, news media consumers are left to evaluate the credibility of the experts in question. During this interview, Labrie touted the Quebec system as follows:

In Quebec, we have universal drug coverage. We've been having that universal system for about 20 years with great result in terms of health outcomes.

Instead of taking Labrie’s statement at face value, we have to question whether this is true. Marc-André Gagnon, a Carleton University professor of social/health and pharmaceutical policy, argues that Quebec’s system is not income-based, and private prescription plans can be costly. In an article published in The Globe and Mail, Gagnon states:

Mandatory private coverage is also not related to income, so the costs can be substantial for some – especially the working poor. I was shocked when a student working part-time told me that she had to pay $190 of her $514 net monthly income on drug premiums.

Furthermore, Gagnon says that the public/private payer pharmacare plan does not address the issue of keeping drug prices down. This is more in line with Morgan’s position on the subject.

Missing Information

Information left out of a story is often just as important as the information being presented. In the interview, Labrie touts the pharmacare system used in the Netherlands, with private insurers providing medication coverage. However, Morgan points out that the Netherlands has laws that prevent insurance companies from making a profit. Without including this fact in his assessment, Labrie is effectively misleading consumers about how such a system would work in Canada.

This Financial Post opinion piece by William Watson questions the objectivity of the pharmacare panel, and whether it represents the views of Canadians. Watson says the panel is made up of individuals who are biased toward a nationally-funded pharmacare plan, while leaving out potential panelists who would caution against such a plan. He further states that no experts from the Fraser Institute, an opponent of “drug monopoly/monopsony,” are on the panel. Watson’s article does not reference any actual studies published by the Fraser Institute regarding the cost of implementing a national pharmacare program. This makes fact-checking difficult.

Background Checks on Quoted “Experts” or Think Tanks

The Fraser Institute is known for its stance on promoting more private sector involvement in health care, and less government regulation. In 2009, the mission statement of the Fraser Institute (captured by Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine) states:

Our vision is a free and prosperous world where individuals benefit from greater choice, competitive markets, and personal responsibility.

The Fraser Institute takes pride in the quality of its research reports and its peer review process. However, academics and policy analysts have pointed out problems in the Fraser Institute’s research methodology and data analysis regarding topics such as health and education. Experts in health policy have reported on the flawed methodology used by the Institute to produce its wait time survey report. In the field of education, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation has long criticized the Institute’s school rankings, which are based on the Foundation Skills Assessment.

Watson’s opinion piece may have a valid point about the Citizens’ Reference Panel on Pharmacare having an inherent bias in pushing for a national pharmacare strategy. Readers should still be skeptical of research findings published by organizations such as the Fraser Institute that promote mandates of their own. 

The above opinion piece in the Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia), written by Colleen Flood, stands in contrast with the previous article published in the Financial Post. Flood likens the Canadian pharmacare system to that of the United States, where those without insurance coverage are left in a precarious position. Canada is paying some of the world’s highest costs for drugs, due in part to lack of federal negotiation with pharmaceutical companies. Flood’s research suggests that implementing a federally-regulated pharmacare plan can be done in a fiscally-responsible manner without burdening taxpayers, while still providing vulnerable patients with the medicine they need.

An internet search on Flood reveals that she is a health policy adviser to EvidenceNetwork.ca, funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She is also the University of Ottawa’s research chair in health law and policy. While Watson comes from an economics and policy background, Flood’s specific area of expertise, her current affiliation with a credible academic institution, and her previous work on health policy give her more authority to speak on the subject of implementing a national pharmacare plan.

This work of satire challenges the socio-economic policies of Canada’s major political parties by citing each party’s reaction to a fictitious Fraser Institute report, which concludes that being dead will help corporations save money and make policy easier for the government. As mentioned earlier, the Fraser Institute is known for its conservative stance on social welfare policies and market regulation. Its blog includes recent entries such as Corporate tax cuts benefit all Canadians and Federal tax increases draining the pockets of Canada’s middle class.

While this satire is not specific to national pharmacare, it provides a left-wing perspective on social policy issues. It challenges the way politicians and media outlets use research findings from think tanks that may have their own biases. This is not journalistic reporting in and of itself, but it does challenge existing reports and provide a different perspective.

Headlines such as The perils of a pharmacare monopoly are written to appeal to your emotions. If you are getting your information from just one source because you find its reporting and perspectives appealing, you might be living in an “information bubble” and thinking emotionally rather than critically. Expert opinions still need to be fact-checked; these opinions can be misleading, and what’s left unsaid is often just as important. In short, reading the news requires the same discipline you would use when exposed to other sources of information.

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