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Wendy Holm
The College Board
Boston This lesson plan was developed by Holm as part of required work while attending The Media and Democracy Institute at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Title: Tabloid Tales: Where Is The News Taking Us -- Or Where Are We Taking The News? Description of School and Students
This unit will be taught to high school seniors as a part of a quarter-long focus on understanding media within a senior English class. The class size is 35 students, and the school is a public high school of 1,400 students in Crescent City, Calif. Generative Topic
Tabloid Journalism Generative Objects
The most recent editions of tabloid newspapers, such as National Enquirer, Weekly World News, Star, etc. and the recent editions of elite media, The New York Times, etc. Understanding Goals - Essential or Guiding Question
- What is "news"?
- Who is responsible for the tone of today's news reporting?
- Critical Engagement Questions
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What is the difference between "hard news", "soft news", "infotainment", and "tabloid journalism"? -
How and why have the '90's been a "tabloid" decade? -
What is the tone of the journalism surrounding "the millennium"? Why? -
What can we predict for the style and tone of news in the new millennium? Performances of Understanding, Rationale, and Timeline In this introductory unit on news, students will come to understand definitions surrounding different types of news coverage, both written and electronic. Further, they will reflect on the predominance of scandal-ridden, tabloid journalism in the 1990s, bringing it into historical perspective with the development of U.S. journalism, and analyze the particular "tabloid" rage of the 1990s. Finally, they will discuss trends and predictions for changes in journalism as the century draws to an end, using the coverage of the year 2000 milepost as both a case study of past trends, and as a mark of possible change for the future. The unit would take 71/2-10 hours of class time. -
Activity l In groups, students look at the various tabloid newspapers, browsing (and laughing) over headlines and stories. Teacher generates a discussion about the "news" value of the various stories, which leads to student-generated list of qualities of "hard" news. Students peruse a variety of small and large circulation newspapers, to search for verification that such principles exist in mainstream journalism. Teacher then proceeds to use various examples of media to illustrate the other categories of news definition, such as The New York Times. This activity would take 2 hours of class time.
For homework over the next week, have students chart examples of each category of news on chart, listing source, content, and reason for why student classifies it as each type.
- Activity 2
Teacher presents illustrated lecture on history of journalism in United States. Reproductions and transparencies of old newspapers front pages, editorial cartoons, ads, etc. illustrate the ideas on the historical tradition of early agenda-driven, politically-motivated journalism, down through penny-press of 1830-40s, the Civil War coverage, and into the Gilded Age and its "yellow journalism", and the Progressive Era of muckraking.
Development of journalistic ethics in 20th century journalism is covered. Clips from movies illustrating such ethical dilemmas could be shown to substantiate the "golden age of journalism" as source of ideas regarding definition of "hard news". Finally, teacher presents ideas from Kalb article on the rise of "New News". This activity would take 2-3 hours of class time, depending on type and quantity of illustrations.
For homework, teacher assigns article: "The Tabloid Decade" by David Kamp, Vanity Fair, February 1999. Students are asked to outline article, paying attention to how and why the 1990s have been labeled as such.
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Activity 3 Students and teacher discuss "Tabloid Decade" article, and analyze both the arguments made for the ‘90s to be seen as such, and suggestions for the future. This activity would take 1/2-1 hour.
For homework, have students write a reaction piece to the article and the discussion.
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Activity 4 Students have access to a variety of articles and media that deal with the millennium, from various sources: TV retrospective/reflection-type shows, newsmagazine pieces, and newspaper coverage. Teacher should ensure a large number of types of media, and stories covered, all relating to the millennium, but with a range of "hard" to "soft" to questionable in news values. Students group together by choice of piece, and present an article or media piece to the class, summarizing its content, and analyzing its type for content, news value, and presentation style, classifying it for the class as a whole. After all presentations, teacher facilitates a discussion to evaluate how the millennium "event" has been handled in the news. Teacher especially tries to draw on student speculation for why it has been handled as it has. This activity would take 1 1/2-2 hours.
For homework, students review terms, history lecture, and examples in preparation for in-class essay.
Assessments - Journal/log that students have been keeping during the past two weeks, analyzing media (see activity 1).
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In-class essay, answering the essential and critical engagement questions. For standard English classes, an outline of the in-class essay could be presented at the beginning of the period, so students are guided in how to integrate all the facets of the unit into a coherent culminating writing piece. Resources - Copies of various tabloid publications
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Copies of large, small circulation "legit" newspapers -
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Research from library and Internet for visuals on history of journalism -
Film clips from news movies, like “All the President's Men,” “The China Syndrome.,” “Absence of Malice,” “The Paper,” “Broadcast News,” “Network,” “Bob Roberts,” “A Face in the Crowd,” “The Front Page,” etc. -
“The Tabloid Decade" by David Kamp, Vanity Fair, February 1999 -
Copies of variety of millennium articles in all media types Wendy Holm's lesson plan, "Tabloid Tales: Where is the News Taking Us -- or Where are We Taking the News? " was published in The Media and Democracy Curriculum Compendium 1999, Barrett and Greyser editors, published by Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., p. 212.
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