There are several fields of practice focused on teaching students to be critical consumers of media. Media literacy generally refers to a broad discipline that seeks to teach students how to access, analyze, evaluate, create and take action using all forms of communication (including entertainment media). News literacy is focused on helping students understand the role that credible information and a free press play in their lives and in a robust democracy, and seeks to help them determine the credibility of news and other information. Information literacy is aligned with library sciences and seeks to help students find, evaluate, and use information effectively. Digital literacy aims to teach students how to use information and communications technologies in effective, responsible and ethical ways.

Misinformation and the lack of news literacy have created an existential threat to our democracy. As a result, there is an urgent need for news literacy for people of all ages.

A free and independent press and the ability to determine whether information is credible are necessary for the future of a healthy democracy. News literacy teaches about the importance of a free press in our democracy, including how to recognize and demand standards-based journalism, which builds an appreciation for quality journalism. Relying on the standards of fact-based journalism as an aspirational yardstick is the best way to measure the credibility of news and other information.

Misinformation affects everything in our daily lives – from our health care, to our finances, to our personal values. And if we can’t agree on a set of basic facts, then we can’t make well-informed decisions about our lives and our governance.

Consider these findings from an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll in January 2020 and the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, respectively:

• 59% of Americans say it is hard to identify false information — intentionally misleading and inaccurate stories portrayed as truth — on social media.
• 63% of people worldwide agree that the average person can’t tell good journalism from rumors or falsehoods.

A Stanford History Education Group 2019 study found that young people, while digital natives, are just as vulnerable:

• 96% didn’t consider why ties between a climate change website and the fossil fuel industry might lessen the site’s credibility.
• 68% couldn’t tell the difference between news and “sponsored content” (advertising) on a news site’s homepage.
• 52% believed that a grainy video of ballot-stuffing — actually shot in Russia — was “strong evidence” of voter fraud in the U.S.

Foreign adversaries and domestic bad actors have used misinformation against us in the past, and actively engaged in spreading false information to sow confusion and division during the 2020 campaign.

The best way to fight misinformation and minimize its harm is to have a well-informed public that has the ability to discern and reject false information.

We have made assessing our work a priority since we first started working in classrooms, and the results demonstrate that news literacy education works.

During the 2019-2020 school year, after completing Checkology lessons:

• Nearly nine in 10 students (87%) could correctly identify the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment.
• Two-thirds of students could correctly identify the traits of quality journalism.
• The number of students demonstrating an understanding of the watchdog role of the press more than doubled.
• More than four-fifths of students (82%) said in a survey that they intend to increase their civic participation.
• More than nine in 10 teachers (93%) said in a survey that Checkology was better than other e-learning tools they have used in the classroom.

We are a nonpartisan, national education nonprofit. We do not tell people what sources to trust, or distrust; rather, we teach the critical thinking skills for people to make those judgments by themselves. Misinformation comes from the political right and left and from foreign and domestic sources, and we share examples of all types.

Members of our board of directors and our National Leadership Council have worked across the political spectrum and have backgrounds in education, journalism, communications, business and nonprofits.

Our funders are also diverse, and our programs and education content are developed and implemented wholly independent of any funder’s influence.

NLP's programs and resources reach educators and students in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Notably, we see our signature digital learning platform, the Checkology® virtual classroom, being used in geographic areas that represent the full political and ideological spectrum — from Birmingham, Alabama; Nashville, Tennessee; and Lexington, South Carolina; to Brookline, Massachusetts; Spokane, Washington, and numerous other cities, counties, states and regions across the country.