13 Is it news or opinion?

Scan each of these articles to determine whether the article is News/Informational or Opinionated.

Keep in mind opinionated articles do also deliver some information to the reader, but they have a broader purpose of convincing you to agree with the author’s argument. Informational articles are designed solely to inform. There is no argument.

Test your ability to distinguish between opinionated and informational articles. Note that all 5 of these articles are related to the same topic: the Flint Water Crisis. Other topics of public discussion (for example, immigration) also give rise to informational/news articles that explain what happened and opinionated articles that argue why it happened and/or what must be done.

MORE INFORMATION ON THE ANSWERS:

Click here to read article #1 OPINION (says op-ed in title and categorized as opinion above title and in URL.)

Click here to read article #2 NEWS (No argument is made. Article provides info about the workers being charged.)

Click here to read article #3 OPINION (Article is labeled “commentary” and “opinion” above the title.)

Click here to read article #4 OPINION (Article is labeled “opinion” at top of page and author is described as an “opinion contributor.”)

Click here to read article #5 NEWS (Article provides a timeline, not an argument.)

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Using Research to Support Scholarly Writing Copyright © 2021 by Matthew Bloom; Christine Jones; Cameron MacElvee; Jeffrey Sanger; and Lori Walk is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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