College students are often mocked for not being informed in “real world” events, and when they do have opinions on worldly events, they are often not taken seriously. 

A lot of college students are frequently distracted with homework and problems directly affecting themselves, however, a lot of students do like to keep up with news and know what’s going on in the world. 

This makes certain news outlets such as The Skimm very useful. 

For those who do not know, The Skimm is a free daily newsletter is delivered to your email each morning. These emails cover basic news topics and happenings in the world in easy-to-understand ways, that are also very brief, making them quick and easy to read. 

This makes it perfect for young people, especially college students, who are so busy. The Skimm was actually originally made with college students in mind.http://blog.theskimm.com/post/115772155362/all-about-that-bassador 

Over the past week, The Skimm reported on a story in a way that upset some of its readers,  but they have not released any statements that seem to acknowledge that they do read and care about their reader’s responses. 

The controversial snippet released in their daily email covered the recent violence that has been occurring in Israel. In it, they described the recent attacks that left at least eight Israelis’ and 30 Palestinians dead as acts of “terrorism,” — with the quotation marks included. They also described the conflicts as the “ushe” — a shortened version for “the usual.” http://www.theskimm.com/2015/10/14/skimm-for-october-15th-4?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner  

Many people were tweeting to “The Skimm” and letting them know how appalled they were with the reporting on Israel. Many people called it biased, inaccurate and even disgusting. https://twitter.com/search?q=the skimm israel &src=typd 

They called out The Skimm’s use of quotation marks around the word “terrorism” and called the language very one-sided.

This story was clearly targeted towards young people, and the reader’s population responded in a way that was unfavorable to the biased reporting. The Skimm did acknowledge the backlash that they received with a blog post ending with “We do our best. You have a lot of opinions. And we hear them” [sic].

This response just seems like a way to get people off their backs. It further proves that the opinions being sent in were not valued — if the Skimm did hear the complaints, as they said they did, the fact that nothing has been done about the situation or the reporting shows that the opinions of the readers were disregarded.

Since this news outlet does cater specifically to young people, they should be more aware of the way that they are reporting their news stories. It is important to be objective in reporting, always, especially based on how the population who reads it is going to respond. 

However, even when their readers did respond, The Skimm did not validate or acknowledge their opinions, which is disheartening.

I am pleased to see that college students have such strong opinions on news in the world and are inclined to reach out to news media outlets when they are upset and angry. 

Young people’s opinions are often scoffed at or believed as less important and the fact that the Skimm has not apologized for it’s reporting on the story attests to this. The Skimm claims to be great for young students because it is a quick and easy way to get the news, however, if the Skimm refuses to take seriously the opinions of these students, they are actually hurting this generation more than helping it.

It is great that college students have strong opinions on things such as this, but it is just as important that news outlets keep any bias in check and report with reader and victim sensitivity in mind. 

Biased reporting, especially that which is specifically catered to young people, could potentially feed information to readers that is not entirely accurate, and can sway them on important topics without providing full information.

Staying away from biased reporting is especially important for young people, because as opposed to older generations, we are still trying to form our own opinions on real world topics. As with all biased news, it makes it harder for readers to form their own opinions on topics.

As the future leaders of the world, it is great to see students calling out biased reporting. News outlets targeted towards college students should not be reporting in biased ways and should not discredit the opinions of young people. 

Courtney is a sophomore in LAS.

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