Atkins is an adjunct professor in the Department of Journalism at Temple University.
In a media landscape dominated by advocacy news networks pushing competing points of view, how can the average person uncover the truth about any particular issue? This talk will show you how to separate the facts from the agenda-driven spin and selective presentation often used by such news sources as Fox and MSNBC. Atkins will demonstrate that advocacy journalism has been a part of our history since the 1700s. He assesses the role of talk radio, cable news networks, and the more recent phenomena of special-interest blogs, websites, and citizen journalists in creating the current media climate. This talk will give the audience the tools to critique the media, to see both sides of any issue, and to become better informed citizens and voters.
Larry Atkins is a journalist, a lawyer and a professor. His book Skewed: A Critical Thinker's Guide to Media Bias was released by Prometheus Books in August 2016. He has written more than four hundred articles, op-eds, and essays for many publications, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor, the Plain Dealer (Cleveland), the Dallas Morning News, the Detroit News, Huffingtonpost.com, the Los Angeles Daily News, Newsday, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, and many others. He has been interviewed by many media outlets, including National Public Radio. He also is the author of Larry the Liberal Lawyer Lashes Out and contributed a chapter to The ASJA Guide to Freelance Writing.