No abstract

This article examines two major institutions widely touted in the United States as servants to communities and the general public: the government and the news media. The Flint water crisis is a textbook case in which these two institutions failed to live up to their responsibilities of accountability and transparency. The authors examine the major events during the water crisis, looking at it through the lens of government actions and how the press covered them, conducting qualitative context analysis during the first five months of the crisis. The analysis includes the actions of federal, state, and local agencies and the reporting of national, state, and local newspapers. Their findings show that the institutions completely imploded, with an impact on thousands of residents, many of whom happened to be minorities. resumen Este trabajo analiza la labor de dos grandes instituciones que prestan servicio a las comunidades y a la sociedad en general en Estados Unidos: el gobierno y los medios de comunicación. La crisis del agua Flint es un caso de libro de texto que muestra cómo estas dos instituciones incumplieron sus responsabilidades de transparencia y rendición de cuentas. Los autores examinan los principales sucesos ocurridos durante la crisis del agua, observándolos a través de la lente de las acciones gubernamentales y la cobertura que les dio la prensa, realizando un análisis cualitativo de contexto de los primeros cinco meses de la crisis. Tal estudio incluye las acciones de las agencias federales, estatales y locales, y cómo fue tratado en la prensa a nivel nacional, estatal y local. Los hallazgos muestran que hubo una absoluta implosión institucional que impactó a miles de residentes -muchos de los cuales resultaron pertenecer a minorías-.Palabras clave: rendición de cuentas, transparencia, gobierno prensa, crisis agua.

This article details a case study testing the effectiveness of a new curriculum for undergraduate public affairs reporting. Our intervention focused on restructuring an undergraduate reporting class to focus on a single issue (schools) and introduce mapping and video, whereas control groups used the old curriculum that was print-heavy and had no specific focus. Findings revealed that the new model helped students engage with communities at a deeper level and allowed them to produce more in-depth stories, but did not increase student confidence with multimedia techniques or class satisfaction.

This study employed a 2 × 3 × 2 experiment in the United States to understand how headlines trigger willingness to verify information, manipulating partisan leaning, source credibility, and factuality. Based on evolutionary psychology, we also explored how perceived importance and information familiarity influence willingness to verify information for accuracy or confirmation of preexisting beliefs. Findings show no differences between accuracy (truth-seeking) and confirmation motivations, both driven mainly by importance. Conservatives report less intent to verify for both motivations and rely more strongly on authority cues (source credibility), while liberals rely on prior familiarity with content. Implications for news literacy efforts are discussed.