We describe a short (<50 minutes) activity using news articles from sources such as Science Daily to teach students the steps of the scientific method and the difference between primary and secondary literature sources. The flexibility in choosing news articles to examine allowed us to tailor the activity to the specific interests of our student group. This exercise is particularly useful in situations where there is no laboratory component to a course, the time devoted to teaching the scientific method is constrained, or the topic is not presented adequately in the textbook utilized for the course.