What You'll Learn
Course Structure
- Week 1-2: Identifying Logical Fallacies
- Recognition exercises using political speeches, press releases, and published articles. You'll catalog common fallacies in real journalism and learn why they're persuasive.
- Week 3-4: Source Evaluation Framework
- Develop systematic approaches to checking credentials, spotting conflicts of interest, and assessing statistical claims. Includes hands-on analysis of scientific studies frequently cited in news.
- Week 5-6: Cognitive Bias Workshop
- Work through scenarios where confirmation bias, availability heuristic, and anchoring affect story selection and framing. Practice techniques for catching these in your own thinking.
- Week 7-8: Applied Critical Analysis
- Analyze breaking news stories in real-time, identifying unsupported claims and logical gaps. Present findings to the group and defend your reasoning.
Program Details
Most journalism programs teach you the inverted pyramid and AP style, but they skip something crucial—how to actually think critically about information before you publish it. This course focuses on the cognitive skills that separate reporters who get played by sources from those who don't.
You'll work through real scenarios where journalists missed obvious red flags, published misleading statistics, or let confirmation bias guide their reporting. We break down the specific thinking errors that lead to bad journalism, then practice catching them in live news coverage.
What You'll Work On
The course uses recent news stories as case studies. You'll learn to identify circular reasoning in political statements, spot cherry-picked data in studies, and recognize when someone's expertise doesn't match what they're claiming. We also cover the difference between skepticism and cynicism—because being critical doesn't mean distrusting everything.
By the end, you'll have a mental checklist for evaluating claims, questions to ask sources that expose weak arguments, and techniques for recognizing your own biases when they're affecting your judgment. The focus stays practical throughout—no philosophical debates about truth, just applicable skills for daily reporting.