The Collegian Media Decoded Special Edition - Published Nov. 21, 2025

Friday, Nov. 21, 2025 • /deltacollegian

MEDIA LITERACY IS EVERYONE’S JOB

Information and technology have evolved faster than any of us could keep up with. News no longer arrives once a day on doorsteps, it refreshes by the second on our phones. The speed and volume of information have changed how people see the world, but they’ve also created something new: confusion. We scroll through a mix of news, ads, memes, and opinions, often without realizing they all look the same.

EDITORIAL

Media literacy isn’t just spotting fake news. It’s about understanding how stories are built, how framing works, and how language can shift meaning.

In a world where misinformation spreads faster than truth, journalists can’t assume readers already know how to evaluate what they see. We have to make that process visible, showing how facts are verified, why sources matter, and what ethics guide the stories we tell.

Algorithms push what keeps us clicking, not what keeps us informed. Somewhere along the way, the basic ability to tell what’s credible and what’s not became harder to find. We were never formally taught how to read this new information landscape, but we live in it every day, and that’s why journalists now share the responsibility of teaching media literacy.

At Collegian, projects like Media Decoded are part of that mission. The student-led initiative breaks down examples of bias and misinformation, helping readers understand how headlines, photos, and word choices shape perception. When readers can see how journalism works, they’re less likely to fall for things that only look like journalism, but are propaganda.

The Collegian

Transparency is the strongest tool we have. Every correction, every linked source, every clearly explained decision teaches readers to question, analyze, and verify. Journalism becomes not just a product but a process, a living example of critical thinking.

This matters most for young audiences who’ve

The Collegian is the student newspaper of San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, Calif. The paper is published six times a semester. As a First Amendment newspaper we pride ourselves on a commitment to the students of Delta College while maintaining independence. We reinvigorate the credo that the newspaper speaks for the students, checks abuses of power and stands vigilant in the protection of democracy and free speech.

The Collegian is a member of the California Newspaper Publisher’s Association and the Journalism Association of Community Colleges.

grown up in a digital world. Many of us never had a class on how to identify misinformation or analyze media bias. We learned by trial and error, often after sharing something that turned out to be wrong. The best thing journalists can do now is make their process part of the story, to show what truth-seeking actually

looks like.

Informing the public is still the purpose of journalism, but in 2025, informing also means teaching people how to find and recognize truth. That’s how we rebuild trust in the media: not by asking readers to believe us blindly, but by giving them the tools to question everything, including us.

What is Media Literacy?

Discerning misinformation

BY LEVI GOERZEN Sports Editor

According to the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), media literacy represents a necessary, inevitable, and realistic response to the complex, ever-changing electronic environment and communication.

“In its simplest terms, media literacy builds upon traditional literacy and offers new forms of reading and writing,” says a NAMLE resource guide. “Media literacy empowers people to be critical thinkers and makers, effective communicators, and active citizens.”

A key factor in learning media literacy is being able to discern misinformation and disinformation. According to Merriam-Webster, misinformation is simply incorrect or mislead-

ing information, but disinformation has a more sinister connotation.

According to Merriam-Webster, disinformation is “false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.”

Knowing these definitions is the first step in building your media literacy diet and preventing the spread of misinformation/disinformation.

In this eight-page special section, Collegian staff look at what media literacy is and how to be more media literate.

“Media literacy isn’t just about reading between the lines,” said Tara Cuslidge-Staiano, adviser to The Collegian student newspaper. “It’s about truly engaging with and understanding content in a way that pushes questioning of the world around you.”

Former Collegian editors define media literacy

We asked journalists now in roles at four-year college or professional organizations to say what the concept means to them

“It’s important to always check the source, check the credibility, and check the target audience. Misinformation is consumed easily, it’s accessible, especially through social media. Media literacy is a tool, a skill you have to apply when it comes to media consumption. It’s important to spread the word of media literacy. With Media Decoded, the goal’s to teach media literacy and empower the people.”

Jelissa King

Editor

in

Chief

of the The Collegian, Spring 2025

“There’s countless ways to consume news, making it increasingly important to know whether what you’re reading is credible. Being media literate means you’re reading news safely. You can be confident in choosing your sources and become an expert in what reliable news source looks like.”

Dominique Williams, The Modesto Bee

Editor

in

Chief

of The Collegian, Spring 2021

“Media literacy is important for understanding what you read and analyzing the facts. It’s important to be careful what you consume and to always fact-check to avoid spreading misinformation. Without media literacy we couldn’t know who is credible and what to truly believe.”

Jada Portillo, The State Hornet (Sacramento State) Opinion Editor of The Collegian Fall 2022-Fall 2023

ABOUT THIS SPECIAL SECTION

In the 2024-25 school year, the Journalism, Mass Communication, and Digital Media areas at Delta College were awarded an $18,640 Institute for Teaching Grant from the California Teachers Association to develop a community media and information literacy project.

The result was the development of a four-step process to media literacy developed by students as Media Literacy Researchers. The students were then deployed into the community as Media Literacy Ambassadors.

The work includes a media literacy guide, activity booklet for children, handouts, pledge cards, and K-12 curriculum resources. The materials are available for free at deltacollegian.net/media-decoded.

This special section digs deeper into the topic at a journalistic level, particularly in response to sessions at an Associated Collegiate Press conference in Spring 2025 where several presenters noted that the job to teach media literacy now belongs to journalists.

“With everyone looking at their own preferred content, it’s important to have the skills that allow us to listen to people we don’t know. Media literacy opens the door for action and conversation by giving us tools that separate what we think from what someone wants us to think. It makes the news less scary. Like anything worth practicing, it will ground you in the context of your own life and help you better understand where you’re needed.”

Vivienne Aguilar, The Merced Focus Editor in Chief of The Collegian, Fall 2019-Spring 2020

“Media literacy to me means being able to think and evaluate the news you consume to ensure what you’re reading is reliable. In a world where fakes new continues to escalate it’s vital that we as readers use our media literacy tools to combat that kind of misinformation.”

Victoria Franco, The Record Editor in Chief of The Collegian, Fall 2018

“To me, media literacy means having the ability to think critically about the information we see, hear, and share every day. It’s not only about consuming news. It’s also about questioning where information comes from, who created it, and what their purpose might be. Media literacy empowers people to detect misinformation, recognize bias, and make informed decisions instead of being passively influenced.”

Hannah Workman, The Record Editor in Chief of The Collegian, Fall 2020

“In a time when misinformation spreads faster than the truth, media literacy isn’t optional. It’s our most essential defense. It empowers us to question, verify and come to our own conclusions. Media literacy is and will always help in navigating such a complex world where separating fact from fiction is a daily responsibility.”

Andrea Rivera, The State Hornet (Sacramento State) Editor in Chief of The Collegian, Fall 2024-Spring 2025

Media literacy project educates community

BY LEVI GOERZEN Sports Editor

Media Decoded, a media literacy project sponsored by multiple campus groups including The Collegian, is in its third semester and aims to teach San Joaquin County how to identify fake news, misinformation and disinformation.

Media Decoded is sponsored by The Collegian, Fierce Mustang Media, SJDC DMedia, KWDC Delta College Radio and the California Institute for Teaching.

Media Decoded began because members of The Collegian and KWDC realized that there was a need for media literacy education in San Joaquin county.

“[Collegian adviser Tara Cuslidge-Staiano] wanted to embark on how misinformation travels through media quickly and she wanted to bring awareness to that and since Stockton is a very small community. Me, her, [Former Collegian Editor-in-Chief Andrea Rivera], and [Collegian multimedia coordinator Matt Wilson] believed that was something we should introduce that to the community,” said Jelissa King, student project lead for Media Decoded and former editor-in-chief for The Collegian.

Media Decoded asks people to investigate the message’s totality, ask specific questions, process the message and explain through synopsis and context, to identify any information that is inaccurate or outdated.

“We live in a world where the line between real life and virtual life has been completely blurred and we are constantly fed information from social media, news outlets and while being bombarded with information it’s important to analyze why we are getting this information and where it is coming from,” said Andrea Baltodano, Media Ambassador for Media Decoded and co-editor in chief for The Collegian Students who participate in the project participate voluntarily and receive an honors credit for their work in Media Decoded.

Some things that Media Decoded has done are appearing at events such as Dinner and Democracy in Fall 2024, Pulitzer on the Road, Student Press Freedom Day and Fully Booked, a fundraiser for Tuleburg Press in downtown Stockton.

Students created deliverables such as pamphlets and pocket guides to hand out.

At events ambassadors for Media Decoded tables and advocate for media literacy while answering questions about the project and its purpose.

Faculty involved with the project also created lesson plans appropriate for kindergarteners through adult learners.

“I think it’s really important that we get all these materials out to the community and we look forward to doing it even more into the future,” said Cuslidge-Staiano.

Media Decoded has reached an estimated 7,150 people at public events and has printed over a thousand media literacy guide, according to a report done at the end of the 2024-25 school year.

On top of local outreach, Media Decoded gained

national recognition earning an Innovation Pacemaker from the Associated Collegiate Press during Media Fest 2025 in Washington, D.C.

“There were some people where this project was their baby like [Rivera] and Jelissa, they really were the ones pushing this stuff making it happen,” said Zackary Kirk-Newton Media Ambassador for Media Decoded and co-editor in chief for The Collegian. “I’m very happy that they’re getting the recognition and that incidentally that reflects very positively on the Collegian and I’m part of the Collegian so that’s great.”

Media Decoded plans to keep reaching out to the San Joaquin County and integrating the project into the local community with aim provide everyone with the tools they need to succeed.

“In such a politically divided world that we exist in I think knowing what’s factual, what’s real, what’s based in reality is very important as just a member of society,” said Kirk-Newton.

Media Decoded Process 5

MESSAGE IS RECEIVED

In terms of media, a message is any idea being conveyed by something you consume. Whether overt or covert these messages are present in everything from social media post to campaign ads.

EXAMINE

Investigate the media you’re consuming in its entirety by looking into who the message is for and what part of the message is important. This can include looking at the about page for online sources in order to get more information.

Be aware of any biases you have that may cause you to be less vigilant, if it confirms what you already think it could be too good to be true. If someone with different values read the same article, what would their takeaway be?

QUESTION

Question the intention of the message, whether it’s a friend’s social media post or a New York Times article any message is going to have an intent to invoke reactions in the reader. Below are some questions that can help you identify intention in a message. Who created this media?

Evaluate your sources, what kind of audience is the message trying to reach? If the source is appealing to a group that is critical of a certain idea that might affect how they present it. By examining bias you can build a cache of trustworthy sources. What context does the message exist in?

The form that a piece of media takes is going to affect the way we view it, a message presented in the form of a TikTok is going to be view with less credibility than a news article.

INTERPRET

Interpreting the message comes in the form of identifying what the source intends the message to convey, this can be informed by many different factors including who is presenting the message, what is the intended audience and who is funding the message.

Considering all of these factors can help you interpret what the source intends the message to mean. For instance, an op-ed that discusses the health benefits of red wine might have its meaning altered if you know that the writer sits on a local wine board.

MESSAGE IS DECODED

By following all these steps you can have a deeper understanding of the messages you consume and the world you inhabit. Having a media literacy evaluation process in your tool box can make a major difference.

Explaining the message is taking everything you’ve gleamed from the previous steps and explaining it in your own words. By answering a few key points about the message you can have a more complete understanding of the message. What is the point of this message?

The message should work to educate to educate inform, and give context. Consider the point of the message as you consume it. Why is the message necessary?

If the message you’re consuming feels important to you that’s why it’s necessary. everyone had their own opinions in terms of media consumption

Media Literacy in Action: Elections 6

Research leads to more-infomed voters

BY ZACKARY KIRK-NEWTON Editor-in-Chief

For many, being a voter is often an afterthought, a moment of frantic pen scribbling as Nov. 4 looms like a shadow. The worst thing? The voting is often the easiest part with the real work coming in the form of doing the research beforehand to make yourself an informed voter.

Oftentimes voters might not know that they don’t know. So how does the average person become an informed voter?

VOTER GUIDE

Alongside your ballot in California you will receive an official voter information guide which is prepared and distributed by the secretary of state. This guide offers a plethora of information on candidates and policy including arguments from supporters and detractors.

Voter guides also include endorsements for candidates and policy.

Reading through the voter guide can give voters a strong indication of whether or not a policy aligns with their interests and beliefs.

In the most recent California special election, Proposition 50 was on the ballot. The voter guide began with a

quick-reference guide including what yes and no votes meant and arguments for and against the proposition.

The section for what a yes vote means reads the following.

“A YES vote on this measure means: The state would use new, legislatively drawn congressional district maps starting in 2026. California’s new maps would be used until the California Citizens Redistricting Commission draws new maps following the 2030 U.S. Census.”

The section for the argument against Prop. 50 reads the following.

“Prop. 50 was written by politicians, for politicians—dismantling safeguards that keep elections fair, removes requirements to keep local communities together, and eliminates voter protections that ban maps designed to favor political parties. Vote NO to protect fair elections and keep citizens—not politicians—in charge of redistricting.”

Additionally the proponents for Prop. 50 are listed at the bottom including Gov. Gavin Newsom and his ballot commission committee.

Official voter information guides are also available online at voterguide.sos. ca.gov

BALLOTPEDIA

Ballotpedia, ballotpedia.org, is a nonprofit online encyclopedia founded in 2007 that aggregates information about U.S. politics into one place to inform the American public.

“Our content includes neutral, accurate, and verifiable information on government officials and the offices they hold, political issues and public policy, elections, and candidates.” reads the about section on ballotpedia’s website

Their ballot look up feature allows voters to enter their information and view all of the elections on their ballot with detailed overviews. For candidates, voters can get a breakdown of viewpoints on their websites, additionally for members of Congress, Ballotpedia displays key votes that they have participated in and bills they’ve sponsored.

For most races, simply searching the name of a candidate on Ballotpedia’s website is enough to take you to a page that details much of their political viewpoints, biographical information, and often surveys they’ve done for ballotpedia.

If you don’t know who’s running the sidebar on the website includes tabs for the current and next years races which can be expanded to see elections from local to congressional.

The quick reference guide in the 2025 California official voter information guide.

COURTESY OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE

“We provide our readers curated content on all levels of U.S. politics that is relevant, reliable, and available for all. In addition, Ballotpedia’s policy content and assets are a gateway to learning about public policy and an unparalleled resource for clear, comprehensive, and factual information on key policy areas.”

Analyzing points, counterpoints using Prop. 50

BY JARRED WRIGHT Senior Staff Writer

Our media landscape is awash in arguments hoping to sway you in one way or another and assessing the strength of an argument presented is a critical skill.

News, generally, is not intended to present arguments, but to report facts — a crucial distinction. Bare facts do not necessarily make an argument, which one can expect to see instead in opinion/editorial articles or in politician’s appeals to their constituents.

Arguments connect facts and assertions into a new form that purports to generate a new conclusion, which may make a case that is stronger or weaker, depending on how well the evidence holds together.

Advocates for and against Proposition 50, which voters recently approved in California’s Nov. 4 election, made concise arguments in the Official Voter Information Guide that are worth analyzing.

The proposition was written in response to Texas Republicans redrawing voter maps to gain more Republican seats

at the insistence of President Donald J. Trump, as reported by the Texas Tribune.

"Yes on 50" advocates argued that it, “approves temporary, emergency congressional district maps to counter Donald Trump’s scheme to rig next year’s congressional election and reaffirms California’s commitment to independent, nonpartisan redistricting after the next census. Vote Yes on 50 for democracy in all 50 states. Learn more at StopElectionRigging.com.”

Writing commonly contains extraneous information and rhetoric irrelevant to the core argument, it is always helpful to first break down and identify the key claims, or premises (P), and order them to see how they connect to the conclusion (C), which in this case is that voters ought to vote yes “for democracy in all 50 states.”

Assuming all claims are true, does the conclusion follow from the premises?

(P2) asserts that new district maps will stop a scheme to rig elections (P1), and C does follow from (P1) and (P2) if one equates countering a scheme to rig elections with protecting democracy na-

ANATOMY OF AN ARGUMENT

P1: Donald Trump has a “scheme to rig next year’s congressional election.”

P2: Prop 50 “counter[s] Donald Trump’s scheme” by approving “emergency congressional district maps.”

P3: Prop 50’s maps “reaffirm California’s commitment to independent, nonpartisan redistricting after the next census.”

C: A “Yes” vote on 50 protects democracy “in all 50 states.”

tionally. (P3) lends indirect support to the argument by asserting that the temporary maps will be reversed after the 2030 census, but also can be read as undermining the conclusion.

This is because there are unstated premises that 1) until the 2030 census, California is suspending its “commitment to independent nonpartisan redistricting” in favor of partisan maps that correct for (P1)’s “scheme” and 2) partisan maps are justified if they make the national election more fair.

(P3) may be interpreted as irrelevant to

the core argument and is instead attempting to anticipate and address an objection the voter might have.

With the information we have been given directly, it appears that (P3), while not contradicting (P2) with its limited “Donald Trump” qualifier, does seem to expose a weakness in the argument by not specifying what counts as unfair partisan election redistricting, leaving it open to the objection that California is failing to protect democracy “in all 50 states.”

No on 50 does just that, arguing that “Prop. 50 was written by politicians, for politicians—dismantling safeguards that keep elections fair, removes requirements to keep local communities together, and eliminates voter protections that ban maps designed to favor political parties.”

However, given that the Yes on 50 website “StopElectionRigging.com” does state that “Prop 50 makes sure the 2026 mid-term elections are conducted on a level playing field without an unfair advantage for Republicans,” it seems that the argument made is hoping the readers will fill in these blanks.

Media Literacy in Action: ESL

Every word counts: Media literacy through an ESL lens

BY ANDREA BALTODANO Editor-in-Chief

When Manjot Singh moved from India to California two years ago, English-language news felt almost impossible to follow.

“There were many hard words I didn’t understand,” he said. “So I wrote them in my notebook and looked them up on Google. After two or three years, I got used to it.”

For Singh, a kinesiology major, learning English meant more than speaking it; it meant learning how to read the world.

Understanding news in another language can be difficult even for advanced learners. Tone, slang, and cultural references often carry meanings that don’t translate directly, making it harder to tell what’s true, what’s biased and what’s satire.

Across the country, more than 67 million people speak a language other than English at home, and 25 million report speaking English “less than very well,” according to 2022 U.S. Census Bureau data. For these readers, the challenge of separating fact from misinformation can be even greater.

A 2024 Pew Research Center study found that the share of U.S. adults who say “inaccuracy” is the aspect of news they dislike most on social media has risen from 31 percent five years ago to 40 percent today.

At Delta College, English as Second Language (ESL) teacher Amber Wolak said that one of the biggest challenges for English learners is shifting from memorization to analysis. She said many ESL students come from educational systems where they were taught to memorize and trust written sources without question.

“I want my students to question everything they read and hear, and I love when they start asking critical questions,” Wolak said.

Instructors work to shift that mindset and encourage students to start asking critical questions. Wolak said ESL classes at Delta emphasize prereading strategies that encourage students to slow down and think before engaging with a text.

“We want students to think about the title, author, and source of a text before they start reading,” she said. “Additionally, ESL classes help students learn how to skim for the overall gist of the reading and scan for important information before reading more deeply.”

That approach, she said, doesn’t just

improve comprehension but also builds media literacy skills.

“Many native English speakers have stopped questioning where information comes from,” Wolak said. “On the other hand, people who aren’t yet fluent in English are more mindful of what they are reading because the process takes so much longer. If they know how to properly identify good sources, they can focus on reading those in more detail.”

Alondra Soto, an instructional support assistant who coordinates Delta’s ESL Tutoring Center, said she sees many students rely heavily on their phones as their main source of news. “They’re busy with classes and family responsibilities,” she said. “Most of what they see comes through social media or apps.”

That constant stream of information makes it harder to pause and question what’s accurate.

“We try to promote English use and comprehension, but also teach them to look for reliable sources,” said Soto.

Dreamers Center resource specialist Tina Leal said misinformation is something she sees often among immigrant and multilingual students.

“It’s important for them to know what’s going on,” she said. “They need information that’s clear and accurate, and sometimes that means having it explained in both English and Spanish.”

Through digital guides and community outreach, The Collegian’s Media Decoded project breaks down how misinformation spreads and how headlines, images, and wording can influence what audiences believe. The project, funded with an Impact Grant from the California Teachers Association Institute for Teaching, was created out of a necessity to “make media literacy accessible to all students,” offering step-by-step tools for analyzing information across platforms, according to The Collegian’s website.

Media Decoded advisor Tara Cuslidge-Staiano said the program’s framework is built around four simple actions: examine, question, interpret, and explain.

“We designed it so anyone can use it,

even if English isn’t their first language,” Cuslidge-Staiano explained. “You don’t have to remember a full guide, just those four steps. If you can do that, you’re already practicing media literacy.”

She noted that translation tools often miss tone or cultural meaning, which can make it harder for multilingual readers to detect misinformation.

“If you don’t have the context, it’s harder to say, ‘This doesn’t make sense,’” she said. “That’s why slowing down and asking questions is so important.”

For many English learners, that process of examining and questioning happens naturally. Because they translate and interpret every day, they tend to read more carefully and think more critically, turning language learning into a form of media literacy itself.

Singh said he still takes notes when reading or watching the news in English every now and then.

“After two or three years, I got used to it and can understand the news easily now,” he said.

Running on empty in a media world

BY JARRED WRIGHT Senior Staff Writer

Keeping up with the news can be overwhelming, but there are strategies we can employ to manage our media diet and become more effective and informed citizens.

Whether we get it through online articles, newspapers, or social media, most of us have likely felt fatigued by a seemingly endless stream of news — stories that simultaneously feel too important to ignore and like we are being bore mostly bad news.

A May 13 Pew Research poll found that 46 percent of Americans feel informed by news “extremely often or often,” but the “most commonly felt emotions are all negative ones … smaller shares say the news they get makes them feel hopeful (10 percent), happy (7 percent) or empowered (7 percent) extremely often or often.”

Moreover, the information-overload aspect of news-consumption has been leveraged by far-right political actors such as Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist for President Donald J. Trump, who was quoted in a 2018 Bloomberg article by author Michael Lewis as saying “the real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood

the zone with shit.”

The “flood the zone” strategy counts on information being too excessive to contextualize in order to disorient audiences and paralyze the media’s attempts to keep pace with it,

Bannon elaborated in a March 17, 2019, interview with Frontline that “The media [...] can only focus on one thing at a time … every day we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done, bang, bang, bang. These guys will never—will never be able to recover.”

One 2021 study, conducted in the Netherlands during the Covid-19 pandemic, found a causal relationship between increased media-consumption and negative mental well-being over time and positive mental well-being following a decrease in news consumption.

The study suggests that “concrete advice could thus be … to encourage citizens to consume fewer news, or only at specific times (e.g., Only in the morning), in times of crises when they feel overwhelmed by the situation.”

While the pandemic was an outlier period of exaggerated media consumption, the findings are good general advice when attempting to strike

a balance between staying informed and managing information-overload.

It is not necessary that we oblige ourselves to be experts in every topic. Choosing instead only to follow only those issues which matter most to us and which we have the power to act on can guide us in curating a less overwhelming media diet, freeing up our capacity to act more than if we had instead become paralyzed by receiving a lot of information about many topics.

While other issues matter too, if many are devoting time to focused issues individually then a division of labor ensures that collectively the public can still be informed without being paralyzed by fatigue. Additionally, finding trusted sources on those isszues one is not an expert on allows us to mitigate our cognitive labor by outsourcing it to others who we trust. However, wisely choosing which

sources we get our information from also has implications for avoiding news fatigue .

A Sept. 25 Pew Research social media and news fact sheet lists “about half of U.S. adults (53 percent)” as “at least sometimes [getting] news from social media.”

While social media contains veritable information, the platforms are also efficiently attuned to compete for our attention by playing into our biases, particularly for negative stimuli.

A September 2024 Nature study concluded that “individuals are more likely to encounter negative news articles when accessing content on social media or through links embedded in posts.”

In light of this bias on platforms that are prone to producing other kinds of information distortions — such as bubbles, echo chambers, and increasingly AI-generated slop — it is important to keep in mind that news may be exaggerated or even fabricated and must be vetted accordingly as a corrective to those distortions.

Finding trusted sources that avoid playing into these practices, which stimulate negative feelings that can cumulatively lead to news fatigue, will also provide more trustworthy information.