Known best for its medical research, Johns Hopkins University also educates and challenges gifted teens through its Center for Talented Youth.
According to a College Fix story, however, a summer class at the Center called “Persuasion and Propaganda” deserves scrutiny for teaching gifted teens about “fake news” and how to identify it.
The course description says it will explore contemporary forms of propaganda, such as "bot-generated tweets, mudslinging political ads, misleading advertisements, and fact-distorting TV news reports."
Just how will that happen, though? That was the question asked by The College Fix, which did not get an answer for its story on what the teens will learn.
A liberal-leaning class on news media is a well-known topic for Justine Brooke Murray, who hosts the “Woke of the Weak” podcast for the Media Research Center. There is no question, she predicts, the teens will hear left-wing propaganda instead of fair, unbiased analysis.
“Of course it will be one-sided,” she says. “And that's exactly why they're not responding to any journalists or outlets asking them to clarify what they believe is ‘fake news’.”
Even the term “fake news” is subjective, she adds, because the classroom teacher gets to define it despite a class advertised as an objective look at the news media.
Back in the class description, it states students will use the skills they learn to "construct and deliver our own persuasive arguments in written compositions, oral presentations, brief films, and public speeches."
