A lesson for the moment

Media literacy during shock and awe … Every day is April Fools' Day … And we all screw up.

The news is chaotic and confusing again. Every day another shocking item pops up. Whether it’s nominating a heavy drinker to run the world’s largest military, freezing federal funding without explanation, or a president pardoning his own family members.

Like we did last week with a list of reliable sources for border news, today we’re talking about media literacy to help you make sense of what you’re seeing in the news.

That includes challenging our own ingrained ways of understanding what we read. Everybody (including us) needs a refresher now and again.

For example, look back at the items we used in our first sentence. You might have thought to yourself, “Yeah, I can’t believe Donald Trump did all that.” But the reality is the third example is about Joe Biden, not Trump.

See how easy it is to fall into traps? Unfortunately, you need to treat every day as if it were April Fools’ Day. That’s the cost of living in an interconnected world where social media runs rampant.

In Tucson, we’re seeing a far more serious issue with media literacy as the Trump administration ramps up its deportation program.

Undocumented people in Tucson are staying home from church to avoid being swept up by immigration officers, while others are asking their friends with legal status to walk their children home from school, as the Arizona Daily Star’s Emily Bregel reported this week.

Some of those fears are well-founded. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a nationwide crackdown last weekend and ICE officers now have quotas to fill. Deportation flights on military aircraft are leaving Tucson for Guatemala. Buses are coming and going from an immigration detention center on Tucson’s southeast side.

But some of those fears are based on rumors. And those rumors are flying around, multiplying, vanishing, and taking new shape every day.

Broadly put, ICE arrests are nothing new, even if the Trump administration is hyping them up as if they were. Every year, ICE arrests tens of thousands of noncitizens.

The question of the moment, which won’t be fully answered for some time, is how far the Trump administration plans to take their immigration crackdown.

The big shift

Here at the Tucson Agenda, when we look at the news right now we see something subtle occurring.

It has to do with what is known as shifting the Overton Window, a strategy designed to gradually change public opinion. In simplest terms, it’s a concerted effort to expand the public discussion until an unthinkable idea becomes a policy the public is willing to accept.

It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of a mass deportation program would have been unthinkable, or at least broadly unpopular. Remember the mass protests when SB1070 was passed in Arizona back in 2010?

The Trump administration set in motion their deportation program last week, and there obviously has been some pushback. But large-scale protests haven’t materialized.

Will we see those protests when immigration officers go into schools and churches to detain people, a possibility Trump opened as soon as he took office?

The Big 5

Keeping the Overton Window in mind helps you see how the boundaries of public opinion ebb and flow on a grand scale.

But there isn’t much you can do about it. It’s too big. What you can do is develop a mental checklist that will help you understand the news, and hopefully keep your sanity.

When we come across trending news stories and popular social media posts, we try to keep these five key concepts of media literacy front and center.

Who wrote this?

Somebody did. If it’s not immediately apparent who wrote it, then you’ve got a problem. And knowing who shared it on social media doesn’t count. We’re talking about the original author.

Every message has a bias

That bias can be obvious, like a partisan hyping up one aspect of a story. It can also be subtle, like what the author chose to leave out of the story. But it’s always there, to a greater or lesser extent.

Anyone can create media

Unless you’re living in a cave right now, you can easily post pretty much whatever you want on the internet. The tools to create media are readily accessible and most allow you to do it anonymously. At the same time, social media companies are stripping away the last vestiges of content moderation. That shifts more of the responsibility to scrutinize onto your shoulders.

Different media use special techniques

A long-form investigative story can inform and shape public opinion on a single topic. A carefully worded tweet can enrage an entire community. A 90-second news clip can be frightening, but leave out important context.

You bring in your own biases

The person sitting next to you could read the same story you did, but come away with a completely different understanding of what the story was about. Education, income, political bias and even which part of the country you live in shape how you read the news.

Pulling it apart

With help from Reuters, we wanted to deconstruct a (now) debunked story about a $750 reward supposedly offered for turning in your neighbors to ICE.

Here are some things to watch for when you see an image or story like this:

When was this image made?

The post has the “BREAKING” tag, but there is no date. We don’t know how old this photo is or where it was taken.

Where did the information come from?

The poster uses the word “allegedly” in this 24-word post, but gives out the tip form in the comments. If this is real, why isn’t there a link to a story or website on how to get the reward?

Look out for assumptions

We are going to gloss over the polarizing term “illegal immigrant” and ask this question instead: Was the person in the image wanted on an outstanding criminal warrant? Or are they simply undocumented? The poster doesn’t make a distinction.

Follow the money

“Cash in folks.” This leans into the possibility of a financial incentive to fill out the form.

Does this person know what they’re talking about?

The post clearly was written by someone who is not in a position of authority. The post lacks any verifiable information. No date, no names, no location, no information about the “reward” part of the program.

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Our advice is fairly straightforward: Take a breath before you re-post on social media. Consider the unintended consequences for your friends and family - who might already be grappling with a lot of anxiety - reading that repost.

And maybe take the time to read “What we’re laughing at” during your day as a subscriber to the Tucson Agenda - it’s a good palate cleanser.

Housing rules in the works: A housing bill that would change rules for Tucson and other cities in Arizona is back at the Legislature, and was just approved by a committee, the Arizona Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington reports. HB2371, known as the “Arizona Starter Homes Act,” would block cities from requiring specific design features in housing, such as the use of certain building materials. The bill also would bar cities from requiring lots on large, new developments be bigger than 1,500 square feet. Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a similar bill last year, but lawmakers took out one of the provisions that bothered her. The new version allows higher density near Air Force bases.

Green light for lawsuit: A federal judge in Tucson said a lawsuit filed against five gun stores in Arizona could proceed, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reported. The Mexican government sued the stores, alleging the store owners supply military-style weapons to drug cartels. Lawyers for the store owners wanted the judge to delay the lawsuit while the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed a separate one, in which Mexican officials are suing national firearms manufacturers.

Point of contact: As local school officials plan how to deal with federal immigration officers showing up at schools, Pima County Superintendent of Schools Dustin Williams said he will be the go-between with the Department of Homeland Security, the Arizona Daily Star’s Jessica Votipka reports. Williams said federal officials told him schools are “not the number one target” for immigration enforcement efforts, but they want to have protocols in place.

New instructions: Pima County Attorney Laura Conover issued a memo advising county officials ask for a copy of any warrants presented by federal immigration officials at county facilities, along with their identification, the Sentinel’s Dylan Smith reports. Here is the script Conover recommended county officials use:

"I want to be as helpful and cooperative as I can with any lawful orders. My instructions require me to quickly get a copy of your warrant and any paperwork you have, as well as your full credentials including name, agency, and badge number. I will share this information with my point of contact at Main County who will quickly consult with attorneys in order to comply with your request as soon as possible."

The border broadly: If you’re interested in staying on top of border news beyond Southern Arizona, the weekly update from Adam Isacson at the Washington Office on Latin America (who we recommended last week) gives you a broad view of pretty much everything happening at the border, from California to Texas.

We’ve all been there. Tucson Sentinel columnist Blake Morlock apologized this week for making a crack about a trip by local cheerleaders. Morlock graciously accepted the criticism and penned a nice mea culpa.

“Hi, I'm Blake. I'm a big, fat jerk,” he wrote.

It got us thinking about all the times we screwed up and got an earful from readers.

Curt called a bee colony a “swarm” and got blasted by local apiologists. Which wasn’t as bad as screwing up the conjugation of the verb “lay” and getting phone calls from every English teacher in Southern Arizona. Joe remembers that time he got a very angry phone call from a reader when he forgot that in 1994 Saguaro National Monument was redesignated as a national park.