National News Literacy Week — News Literacy Project

Check it out! Student-produced news reports for National #NewsLiteracyWeek

Preparing for work

Innovation Central High School students worked with WXMI (Fox17) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to highlight the school’s Academies Programs, which helps students focus on specific career fields.

Dealing with pressure

Journalism students at Hanover High School collaborated with WTVR (CBS6) in Richmond, Virginia, on interviews with a teen mental health advocate, her mother and a university researcher.

E-cig warning

With the help of KTVH in Helena, Montana, students at Capital High School examined the spread of vaping in schools and the dangers of e-cigarettes.

Missing women

Teens in Bozeman, Montana, examine the lack of attention on the issue of missing indigenous teens and women for a report on KBZK.

Fighting cancer

Students at Groves High School in Michigan collaborated with Detroit’s WXYZ on a report about a classmate whose mother is battling cancer ...

Behind the scenes

… and they brought WXYZ reporters into their school to describe how they put their report together.

For more student stories produced as part of National News Literacy Week, check out this YouTube channel.

Slow down

Newsy Brief: Propagators of misinformation often seek to provoke strong emotions like anger or fear, so take a minute before you react or act on it.

Freedom of Info

Newsy Brief: You have a right to government reports and information.

Have standards

Ask yourself a few key questions before you decide whether to trust, share or act on a piece of news or information, says Jonathan Van Ness, host of the podcast "Getting Curious."

The need for news literacy has never been greater.

Even the savviest audiences can find it hard to distinguish between legitimate news and content created to persuade, sell, mislead or exploit.

50% of the public are only slightly familiar with the term "op-ed" or don't know what it means.

63% of people worldwide agree that the average person can’t tell good journalism from rumors or falsehoods.

96% of high school students surveyed did not consider why ties between a climate change website and the fossil fuel industry might lessen that site’s credibility.

What is news literacy?

News literacy is the ability to determine what is credible and what is not, to identify different types of information, and to use the standards of authoritative, fact-based journalism as an aspirational measure in deciding what to trust, what to share and what to act on. Being news-literate also means recognizing the critical role of the First Amendment and a free press in a democracy and interacting with news and other information in ways that promote engaged participation in civic life.

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NLP and Scripps are joining forces for news literacy

National News Literacy Week (Jan. 27–31), a joint initiative of the News Literacy Project and The E.W. Scripps Company, is designed to raise awareness of news literacy as a fundamental life skill and to provide the general public, as well as educators and students, with easy-to-adopt tools and tips for becoming news-literate.

Scripps’ local television stations are collaborating with schools in their markets on student-produced news reports, and its national media brands, including Newsy and Stitcher, are publishing stories and running a national advertising campaign focused on the critical need for news literacy and the important role of a free press in a healthy democracy.

During National News Literacy Week, we’ll use this page to post links to resources related to a news literacy skill that aligns with a lesson from the Checkology® virtual classroom, NLP’s signature platform for students in middle school and high school. Come back every day for a new lesson!

Here is the daily schedule of themes (and their related Checkology lessons):

Monday, Jan. 27: Navigating the information landscape (“InfoZones”).
Tuesday, Jan. 28: Identifying standards-based journalism (“Practicing Quality Journalism”).
Wednesday, Jan. 29: Understanding bias — your own and others’ (“Understanding Bias”).
Thursday, Jan. 30: Celebrating the role of a free press (“Democracy’s Watchdog”).
Friday, Jan. 31: Recognizing misinformation (“Misinformation”).

NOTE: Each lesson will be unlocked on its assigned day; once unlocked, it will be available through the end of National News Literacy Week. Use a computer or a tablet to access these lessons; they were not designed for phones.

Follow the conversation on social media, using the hashtag #NewsLiteracyWeek.

@EWScrippsCo
@NewsLitProject

@EWSCrippsCo
@TheNewsLiteracyProject

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Thank you for a terrific week!