With current events touching nearly every classroom and affecting nearly everyone within the U-High community, staying up to date with news is more important than ever, particularly objective and accurate information. News shared on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat , even news shared by your friends and relatives,  can be unverified, incomplete or misleading. A news diet entirely of social media accounts is often exaggerated and does not tell the full story. Finding good news outlets and patterns to consume media is a vitally important element of becoming active, enlightened, informed people who can participate in democracy. 

In honor of News Engagement Day, we are sharing ways you can engage with the news.

Through Midway coverage, our goal is always to seek the truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable and transparent while sharing the information that illustrates the experiences or perspectives of U-High community members. We hope our coverage can help you be an informed, enlightened and active member of U-High. To engage with the Midway, follow our social media on Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat, subscribe to email updates, comment on our website or contact our editors.  

Following the BLM assembly, some students asked for ways they could understand the news better. As students actively involved in both news consumption and production, we hoped to use this as an opportunity to provide the greater community with reliable opportunities to engage with news. The update will consist of the big headlines of the week in national, local and U-High news, along with one of our favorite reads. We hope this weekly summary of news can help students feel informed in classroom discussions, in open forums and in the world. We will apply the same standards of  accuracy and transparency as we cultivate our update from a range of sources. The first edition will be posted to Schoology this Friday, Oct. 9. 

As students who spend a significant amount of time consuming news, we think it is deeply important for everyone to find and develop their own pattern to stay informed about their community, city, nation and world. We hope this compilation of recommendations for both quick briefings and in-depth analyses will help you be the informed citizen you hope to be.

Block Club Chicago is a non-profit, subscription-based service that provides in-depth coverage of local news. The website sorts news by neighborhood and covers the Woodlawn, Hyde Park and South Shore neighborhoods as well as others throughout the city. Block Club Chicago aims to build trust in local news by providing accurate coverage of communities by reporters who live in those communities. Not only does Block Club Chicago inform residents of the goings-on in their own neighborhood, but also synthesizes news throughout Chicago.

Subscribe for $59 or read up to five free stories per month.

The Chicago Tribune is the ninth-largest news publication in the United States. The news about Chicago is timely, reliable and comprehensive. The Tribune also has the most plentiful resources of any Chicago-based paper, which allows for them to cover stories in advance and break news early. Chicago-area coronavirus coverage has been accurate and up to date. The editorial board is well known to be conservative, but news stories are, for the most part, written with little partisan bias. The Tribune covers other local events, such as Chicago sports and weather. 

For full digital access on the website and mobile app, subscribe for a starting offer of 99 cents per week.

The New York Times is one of the most renowned media sources for informative news stories, great features and opinion pieces. Subscribe to can receive morning or evening email briefings with the day’s main headlines and updates from other sections of your choice. The Daily is a great weekday 30-minute podcast that dives into a specific topic or headline of the day. The news is reliably unbiased, but their opinion section tends to skew left. Downloading the New York Times app and allowing notifications is a great way to stay updated throughout the day. 

Students can get free subscriptions until September of 2021. Otherwise, subscriptions are $2 per week. 

While it is not as well-known to students as the New York Times, the news section of the Wall Street Journal is, like its counterpart, objective and reliable. Focused on finance and business, news stories are often focused on the event or development itself and its immediate consequences, as opposed to providing explanations. Given its focus in business, the international section of the paper is comprehensive. Opinions tend to be more politically conservative. During the pandemic — and after President Donald Trump’s recent diagnosis of COVID-19 — the Wall Street Journal provides all the news one could want about effects of an event on the national, regional and worldwide economy.

Subscribe at a starting cost of $12 for 12 weeks.

The Skimm is an app that compiles a briefing of national and international news each week day — all your major headlines in under 10 minutes. The daily briefing is an easy read for when you’re in a rush to catch up. When you’re looking for more depth, each of their brief summaries has links to articles and audio stories by other reliable media sources such as The Washington Post and The Atlantic. The Skimm also has a “Guides” section breaking down complex recurring topics and a calendar for upcoming events.

Download for free from the app store or enter your email.

The app Winno provides live coverage of breaking news in short and easy-to-understand updates. The quick summaries of a story’s facts are often supplemented with quotes, tweets and images. The summaries include links to news sites with fuller coverage. You can set up notifications on your phone to receive coverage of topics ranging from immigration to the 2020 presidential race.   

Download for free from the app store.