An educator's guide to
the week in news literacy |
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Here are the latest news literacy topics and tips on how to integrate them into your classroom. |
Influencers are being recruited to help squash health misinformation. |
1. Health influencers combat medical falsehoods |
Whether it’s rumors about vaccines, supplements or medications, health misinformation is rampant online. It’s a problem two Boston University researchers suspect could be mitigated with the help of influencers who have built trust with their audiences online. |
- The researchers supplied a group of health influencers with evidence-based information about weight loss supplements, then monitored the accounts. Influencers maintained full creative control.
- Promising results: In their videos, 90% of the influencers included a fact they learned from the provided toolkits — that supplements aren’t approved by the Federal Drug Administration.
- Influencers could be a powerful way to reach people who distrust traditional health campaigns, including about polarizing topics like vaccines or unfounded claims about acetaminophen and autism.
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- What skills should you know to evaluate the credibility of claims made by health influencers?
- How should people decide what sources to trust for information about health and wellness?
- Should health experts use influencers to get accurate wellness information out to the public? Why or why not?
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💡 Idea: Use the “Reflect” slide in Week 4 of the Daily Do Now resource to help students consider how to evaluate health claims online. |
2. AI podcasts and music spreading online |
Startling groans. Random words. Unintelligible garble. This is what one reporter heard while listening to a collection of AI-generated podcasts. |
- AI podcasts are a growing trend. One brand, Quiet Please, lists nearly 5,000 AI-generated shows in its catalog. But some are poorly produced “slop,” according to a reviewer.
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More Americans are turning to podcasts for news, with a third saying they get news from podcasts “at least sometimes,” according to a Pew Research Center study.
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AI-generated music is also spreading. Spotify, a music streaming service, says it has removed more than 75 million “spammy” tracks in the last year and is developing an industry standard to disclose AI use in music.
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What motivates people to use generative AI to make music and podcasts?
- What effects could AI-generated podcasts, music and other content have on the information landscape?
- If you were in charge of a podcast platform or streaming service, what policies would you create related to AI-generated content? Would you ban it? Require a label? Or something else?
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💡 Idea: Do your students think they can recognize AI-generated content when they encounter it? Test their abilities using this interactive New York Times quiz full of video-based examples. Take a vote on each question and ask students to share their reasoning before revealing the answer. |
3. Gen Z journalist buys hometown newspaper |
Shawn White, 26, may be one of the only Gen Z newspaper owners in the U.S. With help from his parents, he bought his hometown paper in Winslow, Arizona, for $16,000 and renamed it the Painted Desert Tribune. |
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White is determined to prove local journalism can thrive — and the community (including local advertisers) has supported the effort.
- Like many journalists in small newsrooms, White wears several hats: working as a reporter and page designer, helping with ad sales and even delivering papers to local homes.
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It’s not unusual for White to interview or write about people who knew him as a baby or even babysat him.
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💡 Idea: Divide students into small groups. Ask each group to write a list of what information they might get from a local news source that they wouldn’t see from national news outlets. (For example, local sports, school board updates, city council news, local business openings or closings, etc.) Ask each group to share their thoughts with the class and bring in examples they feel demonstrate the impact of local news in your community. 💬 Discuss: |
- What role does local news play in a community? How is it different from the role played by national or international news?
- What changes in a community when local news disappears?
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🗒️ Note: Local newspapers across the country are disappearing “at a rate of more than two per week,” according to The State of Local News report from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. For critical research on local news and democracy, check out “The state of local news and why it matters” by the American Journalism Project.
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These classroom-ready slide decks provide a comprehensive walk-through on how to debunk false rumors. |
❌ NO: A September 2025 viral video does not feature genuine footage of a crop circle being formed in Kentucky.
✅ YES: This video was created with AI tools.
✅ YES: Several similar videos circulating on TikTok were also created with Veo 3, Google’s AI generator. |
❌ NO: A British military band did not welcome President Donald Trump during an official state visit in September 2025 by playing The Imperial March, a musical theme associated with the character Darth Vader from Star Wars.
✅ YES: The audio in this viral video clip was altered.
✅ YES: The genuine video shows Trump saluting as the band plays The Star-Spangled Banner.
✅ YES: A similar false claim circulated when Trump visited England in 2019. ⭐ NewsLit takeaway:
Altering the audio of a genuine video is a common way to spread misinformation. This tactic has been used to spread false claims about people being booed, cheered, heckled and mocked. View these Google Slides to hear all about this manipulated audio.
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➕ TikTok will remain active in the U.S. following an executive order requiring a new consortium of American companies and investors to take control of the app that one in five Americans use to get news.
➕ YouTube is restoring the accounts of creators who were previously banned for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 or U.S. elections — despite continued evidence that misinformation on these topics causes real-world harms. ➕ Talk. Hike. Meditate. That’s what students do when they join Reconnect, a smartphone-free club that is gaining popularity on college campuses.
➕ Two reporters arrested while covering an immigration protest in Kentucky now face an array of misdemeanor charges. Local authorities refuse to drop the charges, and press freedom advocates say the cases are “chilling to First Amendment activity.”
➕ Nine in 10 Americans say the First Amendment is vital, according to a Freedom Forum report. However, only one in 10 could name the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment.
➕ A California lawyer was fined $10,000 after filing court documents containing 21 quotes made up by ChatGPT. The state is requiring judges to either ban AI tools or adopt an AI policy by the end of the year.
➕ An AI-generated video depicting Pope Leo XIV falling down looked so realistic that even an acquaintance asked him if he was all right. The Vatican’s communications team says it sends requests to platforms to remove synthetic visuals featuring the pope, but they continue to proliferate online. |
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