Reporter
Gathers information on the spot or first-hand: attends the event, asks questions, takes notes. The reporter determines which facts make it into the piece at all.
Original source (in Russian)
People
People and authors
Behind every news item there is not one person but a chain of roles. Once you understand who does what at each stage, it is easier to see where a message might have been distorted and whose voice you are hearing: an eyewitness, the newsroom or an author sharing a personal view.
Every text has an author. If you cannot see one, that is a reason to ask a question, not to trust it.
This section is about roles; we do not name specific people or publications. You will find no names or newsroom titles below: we are interested in how the work is organised, not in who exactly does it.
Who makes the news
Six roles a message passes through before it reaches you.
Editor
Decides what to publish and in what form, cuts the text, sharpens the wording and often writes the headline. This is where a story gets its framing.
Photo editor
Selects images and looks after the captions: where and when the photo was taken and who took it. The caption turns a picture into evidence.
Copy editor and fact-checker
Check the spelling of names and titles, figures and dates against documents and records. A good newsroom openly flags corrections if a mistake slips through.
Original source (in Russian)
Columnist
Writes in the first person and shares a personal assessment. A column is valuable as a point of view, but it does not replace a report of the fact itself.
News vs opinion (in Russian)
The reader who shares
The last link in the chain is you. When you forward a piece, you decide whether it reaches your friends in its original form or in your retelling.
Before reposting (in Russian)
How to tell who wrote a piece
- Look at the byline under the headline or at the end of the text: a news item usually credits a reporter or the newsroom, a column names a specific person.
- Notice the section label: tags such as Opinion, Column or Blog mean you are reading a personal view, not a newsroom report.
- Check the publication date and any update notes: if the text has been edited, an honest newsroom says so.
- Find out what the author relies on: their own observations, a document, an eyewitness account or another article.
- If there is no author at all and the text arrived as a forwarded message, treat it as a retelling and look for the original source.
Related sections
- Analysis
A headline taken apart using a neutral example, and what to check about a photo that arrives without a caption.
- News vs opinion (in Russian)
A note on an archived feed post address: how to tell news from opinion, reviews, interviews and advertising.
- History
How news travelled from handwritten newsletters and the first regular newspaper of 1605 to feeds that refresh themselves.
Sources
- Library materials on media literacy
- Materials from media literacy education projects
The magazine draws on general principles of media literacy and encyclopedic knowledge of the history of print. How feeds work, notification settings and menu names in your apps may differ from the general descriptions given here.