How can we teach about the news when students don't watch the news?

Leigh Wright and Elizabeth Price found themselves with a challenge during the beginning of the spring 2013 semester as they prepared lectures and lessons for a beginning newswriting class at Murray State University. How can we teach today's students about current events?

Wright attended Murray State University, and Price attended Ohio University and both later worked for Kentucky newspapers. Both professors certainly remember our college professors telling them to read newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post or watch CNN or any of the cable news networks. However, today's students don't seem to have the same level of engagement with current events and news that previous generations did. Many of them admit to getting their news from social media, which can be an unreliable source, or they simply say that they lack the time to catch up on headlines because they have so much homework plus a campus job.

During the two previous semesters, Wright quizzed her students once a week about basic news stories. By the fourth or fifth week, the scores continued to average 2 out of 5. Many students missed every question. Some students didn't even know about campus events, such as the football game on Saturday or the school's homecoming celebration. Wright and other journalism professors became frustrated and started to ask students to simply write down five things they had heard or read in the news. Still, some students scored a zero. Yes, an easy assignment, and they scored a zero.