Giving Compass' Take:

• As part of the Trust, Media and Democracy project, researcher Emily Thorson finds that Americans are better informed when news outlets fact-check issues — but find bias if those same outlets fact-check politicians.

• In general, we should find a way to support more responsible, fact-based journalism. As part of this effort, it's worth looking at how citizens behave when it comes to consuming the news.

• Here's how philanthropy is funding strong journalism.

“America the clueless,” quipped the headline of an opinion piece by The New York Times Frank Bruni in 2013. In the piece, Bruni cites statistic after statistic showing how much Americans get wrong about the political world. He laments that “[T]he truth is that a great big chunk of the [American] electorate is tuned out, zonked out, or combing Roswell for alien remains."

My own research shows that misperceptions about public policy are widespread  —  even regarding issues that Americans care deeply about. For example, while many Americans express serious concern over the national debt, two-thirds mistakenly believe China owns at least half of the U.S. national debt. In reality, it owns about eight percent. Sixty-two percent believe that interest on the national debt is more than half the federal budget. These misperceptions are common among both Democrats and Republicans.

It’s not unusual for both pundits and academics to be hard on ordinary Americans. Americans don’t know things because they can’t be bothered to know them, the conventional wisdom says.

But what if a lack of motivation is not the whole story? What if people do want to understand public policy, but lack the time or the specialized skills required to dig up the basic facts about complex issues? Americans describe the modern news environment as both complicated and confusing. Seven in 10 say the amount of news available today is “overwhelming,” while 40 percent report that news about the economy makes them feel confused.

Read the full article about what Americans get wrong about politics and why by Emily Thorson at medium.com.