The News Literacy Project has produced a new video showcasing the work of students at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md. “Students As Teachers” is now available on our YouTube channel.
The video focuses on seven exemplary projects that 9th- and 10th-grade students completed in the spring of 2009 as part of the News Literacy Project unit in their AP government classes. The students were assigned to create works that reflected what they had learned and what they wanted to share about news literacy. The projects featured in the video include videos, raps, an online game and a board...
The News Literacy Project has produced a video of its first month in middle school and high school classrooms in New York and Bethesda, Md. which is now available on our YouTube channel.
The 6-minute video provides an overview of the project and takes viewers into the classroom with its teachers, journalist fellows and students. It also includes music for an original song written for the project, “Check It Out!”
The video was produced by the project’s staff in collaboration with volunteer participants from The New York Times, “60 Minutes,” NPR and the Los Angeles Times. ABC News...
Alison R. Bernstein, a vice president at the Ford Foundation, and Leslie Hill, a former member of the Dow Jones & Co. board of directors, are the newest members of the board of the News Literacy Project. Both women will serve three-year terms.
“We are honored to have two such distinguished leaders in the fields of journalism, education and philanthropy join us,” said Vivian Schiller, the project’s chair and the president of NPR. “We look forward to their valuable contributions as the project builds on its strong start to become an established national program and a leader in the...
After completing a semester-long unit using the News Literacy Project curriculum, journalism students at Social Justice High School in Chicago gathered on June 9 for a round-table discussion with a public radio producer about current events, the role of journalism and the challenges and opportunities in their digital worlds.
The discussion, which lasted more than two hours, was taped on location by Tom Herman, a producer from WBEZ’s audio blog Vocalo.org. A segment featuring the students will be simultaneously broadcast and webcast this summer.
In the spring of 2010, students at the Reavis School in Chicago who participated in the News Literacy Project’s after-school program worked collaboratively to produce a radio report on peer pressure.
Using the News Literacy Project’s curriculum under the guidance of teacher Miles Wieting, the nine middle school students learned the importance of verifying facts from multiple sources, presenting different sides of an issue and avoiding bias.
Three seasoned radio journalists and NLP fellows—Natalie Moore and Lynette Kalsnes, both of WBEZ public radio, and Irene Tostado of Univision—then...
The News Literacy Project’s program at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md., is featured in two articles in the summer issue of Nieman Reports, published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bloomberg has joined the News Literacy Project as a participant, becoming the 15th news organization to enlist in the growing national effort to help middle school and high school students sort fact from fiction in a digital world.
“We believe in the future of fact-driven news in a world where people are bombarded with information,” said Mike Tackett, Bloomberg’s Washington bureau chief and managing editor. “This program is training a new generation of students to appreciate quality journalism and consume and create credible information.”
The News Literacy Project has been awarded a $150,000 challenge grant from the Ford Foundation in recognition of NLP’s pioneering work to give students the ability to discern credible information in the digital age.
“The Ford Foundation is pleased to support the work of the News Literacy Project to equip students with the critical skills to judge the integrity of the vast amounts of news and information on the Web. This work is fundamental to a functioning democracy, which needs active and informed citizens,” said Calvin Sims, the Ford Foundation’s program officer for news media and...
News literacy is crucial to sustaining a healthy democracy, according to an op-ed column co-authored by News Literacy Project executive director Alan C. Miller and published April 13, 2010 in USA Today, the nation’s largest general-circulation newspaper.
“With actual news, and items that look suspiciously like news, coming at us all day from a variety of outlets, how do we know what to trust?” asks the article, which appeared in almost 1.9 million papers distributed nationwide and on USA Today’s website.
“How do we distinguish credible information from raw information,...
The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting has joined the News Literacy Project as the 14th news organization to enroll in the national effort to help middle school and high school students become more frequent consumers and creators of credible information.
The Pulitzer Center is an innovative non-profit leader in supporting the independent international journalism that U.S. media organizations are increasingly less able to undertake. The Center focuses on underreported topics, promoting high-quality international reporting and creating platforms that reach broad and diverse audiences. Reports...
Building on a successful pilot program in late 2009, the News Literacy Project is growing in Chicago this year, expanding its presence in the pilot school and adding two new middle schools. It is now active in extended-day programs as well as in the classroom.
After completing a 6th-grade pilot at the Marquette School in December, the project plans to also work with 7th- and 8th-grade students there this spring. The two new schools are the Calumet campus of Perspectives Charter Schools and the Reavis School in the Grand Boulevard community.
We are pleased to present the following report on the News Literacy Project’s first year of operations in the classroom.
Eleven months after launching our inaugural pilot, we look back upon a year of extraordinary progress. We now have programs under way in New York City, Bethesda, Md., and Chicago and plans for expansion in the months ahead.
In the past year, we:
* REACHED more than 1,200 students in six middle schools and high schools and worked with 16 history, government and English teachers in three regions;
* ENGAGED more than 70 volunteer journalists in our classroom and...
Thank you for joining our mission. Your donation, made through our fiscal agent, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization, is tax-deductible.
The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) supervises the High School Journalism Initiative, the largest online host of teen journalism. The site displays students’ reports, photos, podcasts and video journalism and offers training and teaching materials.
The Poynter Institute’s News University is an online journalism training program that offers 65 courses as diverse as writing and reporting techniques, multimedia story-telling and ethics. The site also provides access to the Newseum’s “Be a Reporter” and “Be an Editor” games.
The foundation's High School Broadcast Journalism Project helps students become broadcast journalists by offering programs and activities that fund, support and advocate electronic journalism education nationwide.
The network produces a daily 10-minute commercial-free newscast available to teachers and students throughout the school day. It also provides news quizzes, learning activities, fact sheets and commercial-free editions of in-depth reports by CNN’s Special Investigations Unit.
The Newseum, in Washington, D.C., is an interactive museum that combines information about the history of journalism with the latest digital technology and games, allowing visitors to experience what it’s like to be a reporter or make challenging ethical decisions.
Media Literacy Clearinghouse is a website developed by Frank W. Baker, a former broadcast journalist and media literacy instructor. It provides tools and information for educators who want to learn more about media literacy and integrate the topic into the classroom.
Investigative Reporters and Editors, or IRE, was founded more than 30 years ago by a small group of reporters who wanted to share reporting and writing tips. Now based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, it is dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting. It has created a forum in which journalists worldwide share story ideas, newsgathering techniques and sources
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, non-profit organization based in New York City that promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the rights of journalists. Its site includes detailed information and case studies about journalists and media workers who have been abducted, attacked, imprisoned or killed.
The Committee of Concerned Journalists is a consortium of journalists, publishers, newspaper owners and academics. One of its aims is to create a national conversation about the principles that distinguish journalism.
The Columbia Journalism Review’s mission is “to encourage and stimulate excellence in journalism in the service of a free society.” Founded in 1961 under the auspices of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, the magazine examines the news media’s performance. Its website delivers timely criticism and reporting.
FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, monitors the factual accuracy of statements by major U.S. political figures in television ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.
The New York Times' Learning Network is a free site for teachers, students and parents and includes content for grades 3-12. Each weekday the Learning Network offers new interactive activities, such as lesson plans, news summaries and quizzes, based on the reports in that week's New York Times.
The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect was written by former journalists Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. It is taught in journalism schools nationwide and has been published in 38 languages.
Newsthinking, by Bob Baker, a writing consultant and former Los Angeles Times reporter and editor, focuses on mental organization for journalists. Baker is also the proprietor of the website Newsthinking.com.
