The Sift: White House access

September 28, 2026

An educator's guide
to news literacy

Sept. 28, 2026

In this issue

White House access | RumorGuard slides

Daily Do Now slides

A week’s worth of do-nows, just for you.

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➡️ To access News Literacy Project resources, sign up for a FREE Checkology® account. Checkology is NLP’s news literacy education hub and includes hundreds of standards-aligned interactive lessons, activities and teaching tools for grades 5 to 12. It is 100% free for educators.

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Top picks

Here are the latest news literacy topics and tips on how to integrate them into your classroom.

The White House with an American flag on the rooftop.

A White House press ban drew alarm from press freedom advocates.

1. Judge blocks White House press ban

Who decides which journalists get access to the White House? A short-lived press ban is raising important questions about First Amendment protections and the role of a free press in providing the public with information about the president.

Media ban: President Donald Trump announced on Sept. 18 that he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House press pool because he didn’t like their news coverage. Journalists from those news outlets had their White House press credentials revoked.
Judge restores access: The three outlets sued, alleging violations of their First Amendment and due process rights. On Sept. 24, a federal judge restored the outlets’ White House access for 14 days while the case proceeds.
Press pool: The White House press pool is a group of over a dozen journalists who cover the president when he travels or when he’s in spaces too small for the entire press corps. Their reporting, which documents what the president says and does, is shared to thousands of news outlets around the world.
Newsroom solidarity: Within the press pool is the “TV pool” made up of five major networks — CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News. When CNN was banned, the other four networks refused to film the president’s daily events until CNN was reinstated.

💬 Discuss:

Who should decide which news outlets get to be part of the White House press pool?
Why is it important for journalists to be able to question and report on people in power?
Are there any situations in which the government should control news coverage?
If you were the judge in this case, how would you rule? Why?

💡Idea: Use the “Press Freedom” slide in Week 5 of the Daily Do Now resource to further explore this issue.

🗒️Note: This NLP post offers a short lesson on the First Amendment and additional classroom discussion questions about this topic.

⭐ NLP Resources:

Interactive lesson: “Press Freedoms Around the World”
Poster: “The First Amendment”

🔗 Related:

2. How do journalists correct mistakes?

Occasional errors happen in every newsroom — but being transparent and accountable about mistakes is part of what makes a news outlet credible.

Looking back: To mark its 175th anniversary, The New York Times is running a series reflecting on its history of news reporting, including some of its biggest mistakes.
Newspaper history: Over the years, the Times moved corrections to more prominent pages and eventually created “editors’ notes” in the early 1980s to “amplify articles or rectify what the editors consider significant lapses of fairness, balance or perspective,” wrote then-executive editor Abe Rosenthal.
Longer corrections: Among the editor’s notes was a 1,200-word piece in 2004 outlining shortcomings in the paper’s coverage leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

💬 Discuss:

Why is it important for news organizations to correct inaccuracies?
How does correcting mistakes make a news source more trustworthy?

⭐ NLP Resources:

Interactive activity: “Is it legit?”
Infographic: “Is it legit? Five steps for vetting a news source”
News Goggles: “Corrections and clarifications: Accuracy and correcting the record”

🔗 Related:

“Jury says The New York Times defamed Alabama basketball player with incorrect story about shooting” (The Associated Press)

These interactive slide decks help students think carefully and critically about viral claims in the digital age.

No, Spotify didn’t remove Ed Sheeran’s songs

A social media post from “ragebaitnews” includes a picture of musician Ed Sheeran and the text, “SPOTIFY HAS REMOVED ED SHEERANS SONGS FROM THE PLATFORM.” The post included additional text that read, “Macklemore was removed from Ed Sheeran’s U.S. tour after making pro-Palestinian statements onstage. Several venues reportedly objected to keeping him on the lineup. Sheeran said the decision came from the promoter and venues, not him personally. Multiple supporting artists later pulled out in solidarity with Macklemore. The situation has sparked debate over political expression at major concerts.” The News Literacy Project has added a label that says “FALSE.”

❌ NO: Spotify did not remove all of Ed Sheeran’s songs from its platform in September.

✅ YES: This rumor originated with a satire page.

✅ YES: The British singer faced backlash after rapper Macklemore was removed from Sheeran’s tour for making statements in support of Palestine, with at least one radio station announcing that they were pulling Sheeran’s songs from their playlists.

⭐ NewsLit takeaway:

People are less inclined to critically examine a social media post that elicits a strong emotional reaction. That’s one reason why inaccurate rage bait, or content that is specifically designed to upset people, is mistakenly spread as if it were genuine news. Check out these Google Slides for tips to avoid getting duped by these enraging falsehoods.

VIEW ON GOOGLE SLIDES

Automatic haircut video is AI-generated

A post from “TechtrimStudios” reads, “Dubai’s Newest AI Barber Pod Will Shock You” and includes a video that supposedly shows a woman getting a haircut from an automatic hairdresser machine. The News Literacy Project has added a label that says “AI VIDEO.”

❌ NO: This is not an authentic video of a woman getting a haircut from an “AI Barber Pod” in Dubai.

✅ YES: This video is AI-generated.

✅ YES: This is one of several AI-generated videos appearing to show automatic haircut machines.

⭐ NewsLit takeaway:

When an AI-generated video goes viral, expect to see content creators sharing similar content online to replicate that success.

VIEW POST

➕ Influencers and content creators are playing a growing role in political campaigns (link warning: language). To bring more transparency, California recently passed a law requiring creators to disclose paid political ads.

➕ Would you turn off your social media algorithms if you could? More than half of Gen Z users recently surveyed in Australia (54%) would prefer to keep them on, according to a YouGov study.

➕ At first glance, a promotional image from Stanford University appeared harmless: three students in a dining hall. But it was actually altered using generative AI to change students’ clothes and facial features — and replace one student with an AI-generated person of a different race and gender. Stanford later confirmed the image violated its AI policy and removed it.

➕ Is it possible to produce 257 academic papers in nine months? A University of Chicago statistician authored or co-authored that amount, plus at least 14 books so far this year — raising questions about AI disclosure and how AI tools are upending academic research.

➕ Rubbery sandwiches and doughnut-shaped shrimp may sound unappetizing, but that’s the type of AI slop customers are seeing in some restaurant menus and ads.

➕ The comments section of an NPR show on Spotify recently had random messages that seemed like gibberish: “Ur cats are so cute I miss my cats.” “Last Friday I broke up with my gf.” Bots, right? Turned out they were kids using the comments section to chat because they are too young for social media.