Marion High School social studies teacher Grant Thierolf invited a Marion County Record reporter to discuss media and politics with his government class.

Marion County Record: How often do you go beyond the Twitter notification or CNN push notification to check out a news story?

Sadie MacDonald: It depends on the subject or issue. With the school shootings, I’d go more in depth with that than if someone was robbed.

Cade Alleven: I see memes and I’m like, ‘Wow, that looks interesting.’ I look into it and it’s actually something important.

If there were more interesting visual content to go along with news stories, would you be more interested in what’s going on with national issues?

Luke Dawson: Yeah, but you want to look at the audience you’re targeting, too. When you’re targeting politics, you want to have a more serious side of things.

Sadie: I read one story about a house that had 1,000 tortoises just because the storyline looked good.

Does it compromise credibility since there’s no guarantee of getting balanced reports from national media?

Robyn Anderson: You’re definitely seeing one side and you don’t know the other side, so you don’t know if it’s true or not.

What are your feelings on the upcoming presidential election, and whether to remain loyal to a certain political party?

Cassie Meyer: I’ve tried to research the candidates and know them a little bit, but I haven’t tried that much.

Sadie: I wait until the last minute and do all my research to see what happened between both parties.

Do you think of party ties as an advantage or something potentially holding the country back?

Cade: I think it was George Washington who said not to create political parties. That’s a good idea because then we’d be less divided.

Robyn: The parties make it so people don’t think as much about whom they want to vote for. They vote for what everybody else in their party wants, rather than actually looking into people’s policies.

Grant Thierolf: Is there anyone you see as a unifier?

Luke: Biden would probably be the best bet so far because he’s been involved like this with higher-level politics.

Do you see age as a factor? Do you think you should look for someone in his or her mid-40s?

Cassie: A little because they’re at least a bit more in touch with younger generations that are going to become future leaders, rather than the people who are older and might not be as in touch.

I wouldn’t make the decision based solely off age, but it’s a little bit of a strike.