MAS: Use critical thinking skills when reading the news
by Pamela Powers Hannley
The state of news in Southern Arizona is fractured. Tucson's former flagship newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star, was loping along like a dinosaur trying to outrun an asteroid– until the owners fired dozens of writers and other staff last summer. Now a collection of wire stories and full-page ads, this dinosaur of the print era is barely viable.
Pesky blog sites like this one report the news while the newspaper is in typesetting. Still, a handful of beat reporters file regular stories, and the editorial page occasionally includes an opinion piece not written by an out-of-town pundit.
One of those beat reporters, the Star's Alexis Huicochea covers education– including the story too tough to die– the ongoing tug of war known as the Mexican American Studies Program (MAS). Along side, Huicochea's many articles in the Star are hundreds of blog posts by the Three Sonorans (pro-MAS), the Arizona Daily Independent (anti-MAS), and many others, including two Blog for Arizona bloggers– Dave Safier and me.
There are so many voices shouting and writing their opinions on MAS that to be truly informed, one must read multiple versions of the same story– with a critical eye– to understand the whole picture.
The saga continues after the jump.