Archives from September 2008
A column in The Record of Hackensack, N.J., Mother Load: Trusting Information on the Web, explores the need for the News Literacy Project and related efforts.
The Columbia Journalism Review praises the project as a "giant step forward’’ in the news literacy movement.
In a new book, Howard Rosenberg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former television critic at the Los Angeles Times, and co-author Charles S. Feldman call the project "a great idea."
Encore.org charts Executive Director Alan C. Miller’s journey from "investigative reporter to civic educator."
And the project’s first ad appears in the...
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How should the project approach students’ widespread use of Wikipedia as a research tool? Should we encourage them to employ it as a living, interactive alternative to the conventional encyclopedia―an information source that engages and empowers users with a sense of ownership? At the same time, should we caution that it has lower standards of verification and expertise and is a constant work-in-progress that should be used judiciously? What exercises or examples should we use to improve students’ understanding of Wikipedia? What are the best available reports about Wikipedia, reflecting...
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An administrator in a New York charter school said of her students: “They’re under the impression that if it’s found in print, it’s there because someone has determined that it’s reliable.” Jules Mermelstein, a lawyer turned history and government teacher in a high school in a Philadelphia suburb, said, “One of my seniors insisted all year that Barack Obama is a Muslim who is being planted by the terrorists to destroy the government from within. His evidence? He received a blast e-mail that said it and even brought it up on the computer to show it to me as ‘evidence.’” More schools are...
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Here’s a timely exercise for teachers: Have your students search for three to five things in print about the presidential or vice presidential candidates that are false. Where did the students find such statements? Could they identify the original source? How do they know the information is false? What is their evidence? Did they ask the source to set the record straight? What does their experience tell them about these sources of information? If you try this, please let us know about your experience in the comment section at the bottom of the page.
We want to identify and create classroom exercises to give students the tools to distinguish between assertion and verification in news and other messages. We’ll focus on online sources as well as traditional news reports. These exercises can be games, role-playing or group activities, based inside or outside the classroom. If, as a teacher, journalist or student you have such exercises to recommend, please share them in the comment section at the bottom of this page.
We want to engage students across the country in social networking around the news and news literacy through the tools they already use to connect: text messages, blogs, quizzes, polls and voting. We also want the site to be a place where students discuss their experiences in the project and post their own work. In the comment section below, please share your ideas about how to use new media to involve students this way.
Gwen Ifill, the host of PBS’ “Washington Week’’ and one of the News Literacy Project’s initial journalist fellows, moderated the vice presidential debate between Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin, the second time she was in this position. Gwen is by no means alone among the project’s journalist fellows in playing a critical role in the 2008 presidential campaign. Bloomberg’s Edwin Chen and Politico’s Jeanne Cummings have been covering the race with distinction. Scott Pelley of CBS has done a series of high-profile interview pieces with Sen. John McCain on “60 Minutes.” The Washington Post’s...
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