Global Explorers [Workshop]

Workshop Description:

How do we get our news? What stories do we see and which do we miss? How do we build a balanced news diet that includes reliable sources covering the world's pressing, under-reported global stories? Students explore these questions in this 90 minute workshop that illuminates students' interest in global news while also identifying methods for expanding their access to it. Through text, photo, and video exploration and interactive exercises, students will analyze how global issues connect to their local communities and identify practical ways to bring more diverse news outlets and topics into their news routine. Educators, contact us by emailing [email protected] for supporting leading this workshop in your class. You can also use the following powerpoint to structure your workshop. 

Warm-up:

1. Where do you get your news?

• Hands up if you get some of your news from:
  • A print source (newspapers, magazines)
  • TV
  • Online newspapers, magazines, blogs
  • Social media
• What publications do you look at under each category?
• When you see news on social media, do you notice what publication it comes from? Do you click through, or just see the picture and headline?

2. Key words for today:

• News
• News outlet
• Under-reported story

The Pulitzer Center is a news organization that supports under-reported stories, news stories that don't often appear in major news outlets. Today, we will be exploring some of those stories and considering how we can include more under-reported stories in the news that we seek out.

Photo/Video Exploration—Going Beyond the Clickbait:

What can we learn from a photo?

Often, when we scroll through our social media newsfeeds, we make assumptions about people and places at a glance without clicking through to get the whole story. Let's practice looking more deeply.

This is a picture from a news story. Looking closely as a class, come up with:

• 3 observations (What do you see?)
• 2 questions (What do you want to know?)
• 1 prediction (What do you think this story is about? What evidence do you see to support your prediction?)

Don't stop with a guess! Check your prediction:

Caption: Refugee sleeping quarters in Istanbul. Image by Emily Kassie. Turkey, 2016.

Headline: "How the Refugee Crisis Is Changing the World Economy"

Lede: In Turkey, there is a booming market in Syrian child workers, and an entire shadow economy of Syrian refugee-entrepreneurs, whose businesses are essentially keeping their war-torn homeland afloat.

• Were any of your predictions correct?
• What new information do you learn from reading on?
• What local or personal connection can you make with this global story?

What can we learn from a video?

Watch the first 1 minute of the video, "Down from the Mountains."

In pairs or small groups, come up with:

• 3 observations (What do you see?)
• 2 questions (What do you want to know?)
• 1 prediction (What do you think this story is about? What evidence do you see to support your prediction?)

Check your prediction by watching the video through 7:10.

• Were any of your predictions correct?
• What new information do you learn from watching the video?
• What local or personal connection can you make with this global story?

Text Exploration—Finding News that Interests You:

Around the room, you will find photos that come from different Pulitzer Center-supported news stories. Take 30 seconds to explore all the photos in the room and bring one back to your seat. Imagine that you are scrolling through social media: which image would you click on?

Take a minute to study the photo you selected and come up with:

• 3 observations (What do you see?)
• 2 questions (What do you want to know?)
• 1 prediction (What do you think this story is about? What evidence do you see to support your prediction?)

Your teacher will bring you the news story your photo is taken from. Individually or with a partner who chose the same photo, skim through the article, exploring as much as you can in 10 minutes. (You may not finish. That's okay!)

Turn and talk with a partner who read a different news story. Ask and answer the following questions:

• What was the under-reported story you read? (What was the news story about?)
• What was the news outlet?
• What local/personal connections can you make with this global story?

Activity—Making a Global-Local Connection:

Design the front page for your own newspaper! This newspaper should have a mission to shine a light on under-reported stories. Use the story you just explored as one of your news items. Then, come up with the following:

• A title for your newspaper that captures its mission
• A local news story that connects to the global story you explored—write a title and 1-3 sentence description of this story.

Keep Exploring—Building a Balanced News Routine:

You've just explored at least three under-reported global news stories from three different news outlets, making a local/personal connection with each. But all of these stories have been published, waiting for you! What can we do to make sure that more important, under-reported global news stories are reaching us?

1. Create your own global news pledge by answering the following questions in 2-3 sentences.

• Why is global news important?
• Why is it important to seek out news from more than one news outlet?
• What are three things you will do to increase the number of under-reported global news stories you explore?

2. The Pulitzer Center supports under-reported global news stories that are published in hundreds of different outlets in the U.S. and abroad. You can search the Pulitzer Center website to find news stories sorted by country, media (photo/video/text), issue, and more. Connect with the Pulitzer Center by doing the following:

• Visit our reporting page to find new under-reported stories every day
• Follow us on Instagram @pulitzercenter, where a different photojournalist takes over our feed every week
• Follow us on Twitter @pulitzercenter, or like us on Facebook
• Ask your teacher to email [email protected] to invite a journalist to your class

Suggested Stories:

• The World's Most Toxic Town: The Terrible Legacy of Zambia's Lead Mines
• The Boy Named Jihad: From the Ashes of the Arab Spring to the Battlefields of Syria
• In Honduras, Defending Nature Is a Deadly Business
• Exotic Pet Owners of Beijing
• After Nepal's Earthquake, a Push to Rebuild Without Child Labor
• How to Get Your Kicks in the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea
• How Syria's War Threatened the Middle East's Food Future
• Philippines: Parenting in a Box
• In South Sudan Children Are Being Forced to Join the Fight
• Starving Yemen Mothers Skip Meals to Save Their Children