MICHAEL HERNANDEZ
Michael advises the Pacemakerwinning Mustang Morning News in
Manhattan Beach, California. He
is a speaker, author and advocate
for student voices, and he believes
that multimedia storytelling is key to
making meaningful changes in society.
Michael is an Apple Distinguished
Educator, PBS Digital Innovator, and
the inaugural JEA National Broadcast
Adviser of the Year. Follow him on
Twitter @cinehead
school next year because it’s a great
starting point for beginning journalists,
and I can reference the characters’
many journalistic challenges in units
throughout the year.
Fiction is a great way to teach about
non-fiction because it is easily
digestible and generates emotion in
the audience. We know that emotion,
particularly empathy, is one of the
biggest hurdles when reporting indepth or controversial stories, so these
films are a great way to expose our
students to emotion in a controlled
way and to prepare them for the real
thing.
Documentaries can be powerful, too,
because truth is often stranger than
fiction and the best ones often expose
a shocking truth. It’s important to
distinguish between a documentary,
which is often crafted with subjective,
narrative elements like a three-act
structure, music and visual metaphor,
and journalism, which privileges
objectivity.
Here are some ideas for how to use
films to teach journalism in your class:
The Insider. Russell Crowe plays whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand, based on the true story of a “60 Minutes”
piece about the tobacco industry. Courtesy Touchstone Pictures
Set up the film’s historical and
political context. I’ve taken for
granted my knowledge of a topic
because of my age and experience. It’s
hard for our students to understand