The German public TV folks....ARD's Tagesschau news program....have picked up a new topic....way too many German kids getting fake news.
A Vodaphone Foundation survey was done. The results? They suggest that three-quarters of German youths (14-to-24 years old) are getting fake news. What they suggest is that it's now twice as much as it was a year ago.
So what they are suggesting....you need to have actual classes in German schools (like math or literature) and teach kids with legit news, or how to recognize fake news.
Thrown into this whole discussion....the suggestion also goes to this idea that two-thirds of kids can't grasp truthful news sources and fake news sources.
The general problem with this type of review and results? There are three essential issues:
1. A fair sum of German kids (14-to-18 years old) frankly don't care about the news and other than some new movie coming out, some promi-news, or something related to a TV show....they frankly don't care. Some are more likely to name all the major characters on the TV show 'Flash', than they can name actual politicians in Germany itself.
2. If you asked twenty German kids to grade stories off the 8 PM ARD Tagesschau episode....they'd tell you that fewer than fewer than five stores really mattered to them. In fact, the sports update at the end (with soccer scores) might end up being one of the five things that mattered. The ARD journalists might be disturbed by this, but frankly....a ton of what is produced each day doesn't affect these kids, and it's a waste of time to think they 'get it'.
3. When you get down to the bottom line....the edge of this discussion is that the BIG people want to certify the news to the teenagers, and document that ONLY ARD/ZDF (the public news crowd) are legit news makers. For the kids, they will quickly start laughing and suggest this whole discussion is bogus.
All of this basically leads to propaganda, and how to recognize it. My view.....you could teach this to 14-to-16 year old kids with an hour per day.....over a month. But when I'd done teaching this ability....that kid is going to be skeptical of all news sources, and he will marginally even believe ARD/ZDF. It's hard enough to drive this skill at college-level kids....but do you really want to make a ton of juveniles that skeptical of the world around them?
Do German kids really need to know about BREXIT.....voting trends in Russia....fires in Australia.....the 'evil' Trump....some coup-chatter in Spain, or some dam being constructed in Ethiopia?
Where will this fake news discussion go to? I would imagine that the Bundestag will funnel a couple dozen-million Euro into some video piece (ten-hours).....to give kids the impression of fake news and how to recognize it.
Eventually, the kids will start to discuss the idea of fake-education, fake-knowledge, and fake-wisdom....leaving everyone to wonder if they missed the key point of this discussion.
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