The Sift: Washington Post layoffs
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Washington Post layoffs | RumorGuard slides
Daily Do Now slides
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Top picks
Here are the latest news literacy topics and tips on how to integrate them into your classroom.
The Washington Post lost a third of its staff in recent layoffs.
1. What’s lost amid newsroom layoffs
In a significant blow to journalism and democracy, The Washington Post laid off more than 300 journalists last week.
- News coverage lost: The Post newsroom, which had about 800 journalists before the layoffs, lost reporters who covered international news, politics, war zones, sports, race relations, technology, books, food and more.
- Effect on information landscape: Fewer reporters means less original reporting and more stories that go untold.
- Why this happened: The paper’s executive editor said the layoffs were the result of financial challenges. Former Post top editor Marty Baron criticized the Post’s owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, and wrote that “the public will be denied the ground-level, fact-based reporting in our communities and around the world that is needed more than ever.”
💡 Idea: Examine this new News Literacy Project poster, “The Information Ecosystem Depends on News,” with students and discuss how news reporting serves as a foundation for understanding current events.
💡Another idea: Use the “News decline” slide in Week 16 of the Daily Do Now resource to further explore this topic.
💬 Discuss:
- How might large cuts at major news outlets like The Washington Post affect the information landscape?
- What kind of stories do you think might go uncovered when there are fewer journalists?
🔗 Related:
- “‘Washington Post’ CEO departs after going AWOL during massive job cuts” (NPR)
- “The Smallest Town in the U.S. with a Daily Newspaper? Council Grove, Kansas.” (Kansas Public Radio)
- “Atlanta Journal-Constitution to lay off about 50 employees as it restructures for growth” (CBS News)
2. Smartphones pave way for citizen watchdogs
Ordinary people who film newsworthy events can document injustice, hold the powerful accountable and provide essential information for journalists and the public — key ways for citizens to act as watchdogs in their communities.
- Documenting events: While the term “watchdog” is typically associated with the press, everyday people can play this role as well. In recent decades, smartphone cameras have “become humanity’s most powerful witness,” wrote Forbes contributor Tim Bajarin. They’re now routinely used by bystanders and eyewitnesses to create a public record of evidence, including in the recent fatal shootings and protests in Minnesota.
- First Amendment rights: Bystanders can record law enforcement in public as long as they don’t obstruct officers from doing their job, according to legal experts. Some states also require people to keep a certain distance.
💬 Discuss:
- What kinds of issues or subjects lend themselves to citizens playing the watchdog role?
- How are citizen watchdogs different from journalists?
- What issues or subjects are most in need of citizen watchdogs today?
💡 Idea: Explore our “Citizen Watchdogs” lesson, which takes a historical look at the citizen watchdog role. This lesson is from 2016. How has the citizen watchdog role grown since then?
3. How an investigative reporter uses open sources
When investigating a complex story, clues sometimes hide in plain sight. In this New York Times piece, investigative video journalist Christiaan Triebert shares how he pieces together openly accessible digital information to get a clearer picture of big news events.
- Open-source reporting: Triebert uses publicly available sources to better understand global conflicts and potential abuses of power. This includes analyzing social media videos, flight tracking information, satellite imagery and databases.
- Reconstructing news events: One of Triebert’s first investigations at the Times in 2019 confirmed that Russia was bombing Syrian hospitals. The proof? Cockpit audio of Russian pilots.
- AI concerns: To check if a video is AI-generated or manipulated, one step Triebert takes is to search for additional sources. For example, if he’s reviewing a video of an explosion, he may look for a satellite image of it.
💬 Discuss:
- What kind of information can you find in openly available sources? How might journalists use these sources to help hold people in power accountable?
- What steps can you take to verify content online?
⭐ NLP Resources:
- “News Goggles: Nami Sumida, San Francisco Chronicle” data journalist
- “Sift quiz: Fact-checking red flags”
🔗 Related:
- “In Minneapolis and other U.S. cities, Bellingcat supplements local news by ‘zooming in with a forensic lens’” (Nieman Lab)
These classroom-ready slide decks provide a comprehensive walk-through on how to debunk false rumors.
AI video of earthquake shaking up McDonald’s fries goes viral
❌ NO: This is not a genuine video of an earthquake spilling a man’s McDonald’s fries in Toronto.
✅ YES: This video is AI-generated.
✅ YES: This video was widely circulated after a small earthquake in Canada on Jan. 27, 2026.
⭐ NewsLit takeaway:
Distinguishing between genuine and AI-fabricated videos can be difficult, especially when the content seems engaging. Check out these Google Slides to learn how to spot this AI-generated content.
No, White House spokesperson didn’t claim Melania made more than Star Wars
❌ NO: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not say that the movie Melania sold more tickets than Star Wars.
✅ YES: This is a fictitious quote that originated with a satirist.
✅ YES: Several falsehoods are circulating about Melania, including that it would be mandatory viewing in schools.
⭐ NewsLit takeaway:
Doctoring a news chyron is a common way to spread false claims online. This deceptive tactic can fool viewers by making it seem as if a quote has been verified by a well-known news outlet. Check out these Google Slides to learn how to debunk these posts.

➕ During the Super Bowl halftime show, Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny handed a little boy a Grammy Award. The boy was an actor, but online rumors falsely claimed it was Liam Conejo Ramos, a child who recently made headlines after he and his father were detained by federal immigration officials in Minneapolis.
➕ Student journalists at the University of Minnesota’s newspaper, The Minnesota Daily, are going through safety training and have a mandatory buddy system as they cover immigration enforcement in their region.
➕ One way to cut through AI slop: lateral reading, or the practice of confirming information by searching to see what other credible sources say. Check out Misguided newsletter for more tips.
➕ The Taj Mahal may be one of the seven wonders of the world, but conspiracy theories about its origin have spread for decades — and have recently ramped up after a Bollywood film brought these conspiratorial claims into the mainstream.
➕ Spain plans to ban social media for children under 16, joining a growing list of countries (Australia, Denmark, Malaysia) enacting such bans.
➕ Have you ever asked an AI chatbot for local news updates? OpenAI says ChatGPT receives about 1 million local news prompts each week.
➕ A journalism professor who experimented with turning to chatbots for news for a month found AI summaries were accurate only about half the time.
➕ The Skanner, once the largest Black newspaper in the Pacific Northwest, recently shuttered, with the paper’s founders citing the changing media landscape.
Thanks for reading!
Your weekly issue of The Sift is created by Susan Minichiello, Dan Evon, Peter Adams, Hannah Covington and Pamela Brunskill. It is edited by Lourdes Venard and Mary Kane.
You’ll find teachable moments from our previous issues in the archives. Send your suggestions and success stories to thesift@newslit.org.
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Check out NLP's Checkology virtual classroom, where students learn how to navigate today’s information landscape by developing news literacy skills.





