Teaching the Truth about Video

Television can befuddle even the smartest viewers. Stories on news programs may be disguised commercials for entertainment shows. Commercials designed to sell products may be more entertaining than the entertainments they interrupt. Docudramas dress up fiction as reality, and "reality" shows pretend to be as innocently truthful as raw home videos. And even when they're not mixing genres, video programs can lie about the products you buy, the politicians you elect, and the values you subscribe to.

Meanwhile, children and teenagers (and many adults) sit there and soak it all up. Kids may be highly astute critics in telling quality programs from junk; but in telling fact from fiction, truth from lies, they have little or no training. If you're a video enthusiast who's also a teacher, a parent, a grandparent or a leader in a congregation, you can help teach young people to look at TV with the knowledge of how the medium can take you for a ride.

For simplicity, we'll assume that you teach beginning video production, though the projects described here work just as well in English or social studies - or outside school in any organization that includes young viewers. We'll outline four brief videos that can show how TV spins the truth: one each in news, sports, political ads and commercials. You can use each one as-is, or employ it as a model for topics more appropriate to your sit…