RIDLE Resolution

 RIDLE: Regulation, Information Technology, Definition, and  Literacy Education 

Press Corps,

Sponsors: New York Times, Associated Press, TMZ, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Huffington Post, The Onion

Signatories: Buzzfeed, Forbes, The Telegraph, Al Jazerra, Daily Mail, Washington Post, CNN, Wall Street, MSNBC, Politico, BBC, FOX News, LA Times, The Independent

Topic: Political Bias in the Media

Acknowledging the need for self regulation and cross-accountability to prevent political bias in journalism,

Understanding the necessity of media literacy education to protect vulnerable communities susceptible to misinformation, 

Protecting the freedoms of speech by discouraging censorship and government intervention,

Encouraging the use of technology to warn viewers about biases and misinformation in news media,

Recognizing the need to define and separate misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation,

MEDIA LITERACY 

1. Creates media literacy curricula through a collaboration between a politically-diverse group of news outlets including information and training on how to spot fake news, recognize political bias, and the difference between misinformation and disinformation,

1. Incorporating curricula into diverse age ranges by various media and educational outlets, to expand target age range (an issue observed currently) with cookies and data

1. Under the age of 7: collaborating with game development companies and youth video media companies (such as Youtube kids), as well as private kindergarten and primary schools and public elementary school districts to provide fun videos and classroom activities that educate and help these children start to see the issue with believing everything they see online, 

2. Ages 7-12: emphasizing curricula through mainly public elementary school districts, easy to understand social media campaigns, and working with extracurricular activities and after-school center to promote politically unbiased strategies, 

3. Ages 12-18: Spreading recommended practices in curricula through middle and high school public education districts, private middle and high schools, extracurricular activities and after-school centers, highest possible amount of social media ads and videos in platforms like Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, Snapchat, among others, and encouraging Model UN, debate, and speech conferences to provide these trainings, information, and choose related topics for discourse, 

4. Ages 18-60: Spreading curated curricula with examples relevant to adults and a mature audience; training will be incorporated into employee-required training, ad campaigns will be posted on adult directed media: Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc… 

5. Ages 65+, content will be spread in senior centers, community areas, senior related media ads on Whatsapp, tv shows, channel tv and content that is most viewed by this age range 

      

2. Partners with school districts in our outlets’ local areas to implement media literacy education lessons,

1. Working with local governments school districts to implement special days to educate youth on media literacy,

1. Guest-speaker presentations from fact-checkers employed by new outlets to highlight the impacts of political bias and misinformation along with information about how to combat these issues,

2. Empowering teachers through the use of workshops in which they can learn about the most successful methods of educating children in different age ranges on how to identify misinformation and disinformation,

2. Utilizes existing UN resources such as the Pause and Verified campaign to expand the literacy programs beyond just the COVID-19 infodemic, 

1. Promoting said curated curricula through these UN resources, 

2. Converting covid focused programs to promote overall media literacy and recognizing political bias; 

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3. Encourages news outlets and governments to partner with and promote 3rd-party, independent fact-checkers to flag websites check websites,

1. Partnering with the third party plug-in News Guard to: 

1. Tag articles as opinion, news, entertainment, or other categories based on keywords using,

2. Tag websites with their political bias (Left leaning, right leaning, independent, etc.

3. Linking factual articles to scientific studies and statistics which have been peer reviewed,

1. In any topic discussing scientific research which will be identified by keywords linking the article to scientific studies on the topic which have been peer reviewed; 

CROSS-REGULATION 

4. Promotes the creation and publishment of a tri-annual bias ranking list that would rate news organizations on their objectivity and bias, 

1. The bias list would rate every publication on a scale of 1 to 5, 

1. 1 being the least objective and most biased and 5 being the most objective and least biased, 

2. Each organization would be evaluated on a set of strict criteria that would judge the organization's including but not limited to, 

1. sourcing techniques, 

2. biased language use, 

3. public perception,

4. number of flags for inaccurate misinformation,

5. consumer reputation and perception,

3. Journalism publications would be judged by their countries national communications agency,

1. For example, in the United States the press organizations would be assessed by representatives from the Federal Communication Commissions;

5. Recommends the creation of a new chapter of the Style Guide or that would include methods and ways that news organizations and journalists can curb bias, 

1. This section would encompass methods such as but not limited to, 

1.  Unbiased words that can substitute for politically charged words in news articles, 

2. The creation of a summary section at the top of every article that includes facts with no analysis, 

3. The inclusion of article tagging to tag politically biased articles with their bias leaning, 

1. These tags would be included underneath the article type, 

2. In the interest of transparency, further recommends that all news corporations publish their companies journalistic ethics policies,

1. Inform readers about the journalistic standards applied to the authors of the articles that they read,

1. Build trust within the public,

2. Potential reprimands for staff reporters who violate the code of ethics;

6. Encourages self-regulation within the media industry,

1. Cross-source fact checking from media outlets across the political spectrum,

2. Publicly calling out other media sources for spreading misinformation or disinformation, providing evidence and reasoning to refute the claims,

1. Offering different perspectives on the facts presented,

3. Publicly calling out other media sources for unethical journalism;

SELF-REGULATION 

7. Suggests hiring long-term and short-term teams of fact-checkers and proof-readers to approve political articles before publication,

1. Check the accuracy of statements made by public figures before writing articles about their statements;