Overview
The News Literacy Project is a response to the growing challenge of assuring that America’s young people get the information they need to become well-informed citizens and voters in the 21st century. Tapping into the passion journalists feel for their craft, the project is bringing active and retired journalists into middle schools and high schools to encourage students to seek verified information on any medium or platform. Journalists are joining forces with teachers to do so through a core curriculum, their own compelling stories, hands-on exercises, videos and the use of new media.
The journalists are being matched by the project’s staff with social studies, history and English teachers. Print, broadcast and online reporters and editors, producers and photographers are visiting classrooms or participating in videoconferences with students. The classes will help teachers meet required state standards even as they draw on the journalists’ experience and expertise to increase students’ understanding of the reliability of news and other information. This will help students think critically about what they read, hear and see, distinguish valid arguments from fallacious ones and analyze ideas from primary and secondary sources.
The journalists are focusing on how to distinguish credible information from opinion, spin, rumor, advertising and propaganda. They are also discussing why news matters to young people and what the First Amendment and a free media mean in a democracy. The curriculum is also addressing such new media tools as Google, blogs and Wikipedia. Students are learning how to discern among media messages and how to produce accurate information themselves—whether they’re texting, blogging or telling stories.
Teachers are requesting journalists based on their subject matter. A White House or city hall reporter might be a good fit for a government class, a former foreign correspondent might work well in a history class and a feature writer could be ideal for an English class. Sports and entertainment reporters or television correspondents would connect with students across a wide range of subjects. The journalists and teachers are presenting units that span six to 10 classes. Each are two to four weeks long, depending on the journalists’ availability and the teachers’ needs. Students are being assigned to read or watch the journalists’ work before the journalist arrives and given reading and other assignments about journalism and news literacy. Classroom sessions emphasize the students’ engagement through exercises and their own work.
Active and retired journalists are also working with students in an after-school apprenticeship program in New York City. The News Literacy Project is partnering with Citizen Schools, a program that helps improve student achievement by blending real world learning projects and rigorous academics.
"The News Literacy Project is a simple but powerful idea,’’ said Tom Rosenstiel, founder and director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and a member of the project’s advisory committee. "Everyone knows we need to do media literacy, and this is exactly the way to do it.’’