Journalism and Media Literacy (Student-Created Guide): Local News Sources (Madison)

In our current political and social climate, it can be very difficult to figure out what you can and can’t trust when it comes to news. As someone who is majoring in and works in news, I’m trained on what questions I should be asking of a news source, how to tell if a source is credible and where I can find the most reliable news. But I understand that not everyone is and with the vast amount of information that is available on the internet, I see how it can be overwhelming to try to figure out where to even start to identify credible sources. 

For this guide, I’m going to try to stay as local as possible. Big things are happening in our country right now and the best way to figure out how it could impact your life is through your local news sources. Because I know a lot of the sources and outlets that I’m going to be talking about, I trust them and know that they can be a reliable source for you too. However, because it’s also important to widen your news views to gain a better understanding of the world, I’ll also add in a few national sources. 

In addition, I’ll also be adding in a few sources that are tools for you to use to fact check things on your own. While journalists and news organizations hold themselves to very high standards, we also need our audiences to hold us accountable and these tools should help you with that.