A brief history is given of approaches that aim at achieving a connectedness of the content of organic chemistry courses to real world issues. Recently, such approaches have relied more and more on online media resources, the tools of the Internet and the World Wide Web. We propose a six-level taxonomy of 'authentic news media-based learning activities' to provide a conceptual framework for the description and discussion of such approaches. The Chemistry Is in the News project was designed to allow students to draw explicit connections between the course content and real world issues in ways that engage the students in a full range of cognitive skills. The activities consisted in the study, creation, and peer review of news portfolios by student collaborative groups. A news portfolio consists of an authentic news article taken from the popular press with interpretive comments and questions.