Part of being media literate is asking questions of everything you read, watch and hear, including the Times sources we’re suggesting throughout this resource. All media has bias, as charts like this one or this one show, and we regularly remind students to do as this lesson plan from PBS News Hour Classroom suggests and compare how different media treat the same news story. But, since the mission of The Learning Network is to help students learn with Times materials specifically, we are focusing here on our own journalism.
While The New York Times, founded in 1851, is widely recognized as the paper of record in the United States, no “first rough draft of history” is without error, and sometimes the consequences of those mistakes can be momentous. For example, this lesson plan focuses on how The Times and other media reported on the Holocaust in the 1930s and ’40s — coverage that Max Frankel, a former executive editor of The Times, called “the century’s bitterest journalistic failure.” This 2004 piece, written by a group of Times editors, analyzes problematic aspects of the paper’s coverage of news in the two years leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. No matter what important 20th- or 21st-century world or national event your students are studying, they might use TimesMachine or the Times archives to analyze how the paper covered what unfolded, what the publication did well and where it may have stumbled.
But we also encourage students to think critically about Times coverage as they read today’s news. For example, as they follow reporting on the second Trump administration, students might want to read this Insider piece in which Times editors address common reader questions about how the paper covers the president. To go further, students might also consider pieces by media critics from outside The Times, such as Margaret Sullivan, who was once the public editor for The Times and now writes for The Guardian and has a Substack newsletter focused on the question “Can journalism save democracy?” Don’t forget, too, that, via our Conversations With Journalists activity, students have the chance to pose their own questions to reporters directly, as many did in this recent discussion with a White House correspondent.
Sometimes, however, the most interesting and accessible critiques come from Times readers. In its commenting standards, The Times explains that it “welcomes strong opinions and criticism of our work.” Students can read those by scanning the daily Letters to the Editor column, or by checking out the thousands of comments left on scores of articles and opinion pieces each day. What did they learn? What might they add if they were to join the conversation? Practicing these critical thinking skills as they read The Times will help students become more savvy consumers of all media — as well as more engaged citizens.
