The Life of Gusto podcast host Augusto Andres interviews Chuck Salter, NLP’s president and COO for a Feb. 21 segment on truth and misinformation.  Salter shares his insights into how we arrived at this period where truth itself is under siege, the challenges of navigating our complex information landscape, and most importantly, why civics education is a key component to helping preserve our democracy.

NLP founder and CEO Alan C. Miller discussed news literacy and its role in democracy on The Trusted Web Podcast, hosted by Sebastiaan van der Lans. When introducing Miller in the Feb. 10 segment, Creating News Literacy with Alan Miller, CEO of the News Literacy Projec‪t, van der Lans said, “Alan and I share a passion for a more truthful internet, and we both chose the route of building a whole category as an important way of achieving it, in Alan’s case: news literacy.”

Alan’s advice to listeners includes key first steps for becoming more news-literate, including being mindful of emotions and pausing before trusting, sharing or acting on information. “The first thing is to check your emotions, because when we see something that really inflames our emotions, whether it makes us angry or anxious or even joyful, we tend to let down our guard in terms of our skepticism about what we are seeing.”

Trust in the media

He also addresses the need for news media to work to build the public’s trust through accountability and transparency. “We live in such a hyper-connected time that things move so rapidly and move out on social media, it’s just so difficult to put the horse back in the barn when mistakes are made and then they spread and get amplified so readily,” says Miller.

Miller also stresses the need for the American education system to require the teaching of critical thinking and related news literacy skills, as part of civics education or another discipline. “If we don’t teach this to the next generation, we are denying them the ability to be full and effective participants in the civic lives of their communities and their countries. It’s not only a survival skill  that advantages those that are able to discern credible information today, but it’s an essential skill for them to participate in civic life,” he tells van der Lans.

Listen to the full conversation here.

The School Library Journal spoke with Ebonee Rice on Feb. 3 about NLP’s new educator network. “We really understand that educators are the experts and educators are really on the front lines in the fight against misinformation, so we wanted to create a community where educators who are doing this work can talk to each other,” Rice says in the article News Literacy Project Launches NewsLit Nation, a National Educator Network. “The end goal is to incorporate news literacy into the American education experience, allowing people to use best practices to figure out the best way to incorporate news literacy into their specific context.”

Opinion: Urge un consumo responsable de información entre la comunidad latinx
 en Estados Unidos

The Jan. 27 editorial in the Hutchinson Leader of Minnesota, This National News Literacy Week, pledge to be a more discerning consumer of media, makes the case for news literacy and offers readers advice on how to become more news-literate.

Now is no time to let down our guard on fact-checking, Darragh Worland, NLP’s vice president of creative services, tells Bob Oswald of The Daily Herald, a newspaper outside of Chicago.

“It would be a mistake to go too easy on Biden because (fact checkers) are fatigued from Trump fact checking,” she says in the Jan. 27 piece The News Literacy Project keeps pressure on fact checking. “People need to know what their leaders are doing.”

In his column, Oswald notes: “Although misinformation has been flowing since the beginning of time, Worland admits that fact checking over the past four years has been even more exhausting for news consumers and journalists.”

Getting to the facts is not easy for anyone, she notes. “With the opposing narratives, it has been hard for anybody to wrap their head around the truth,” Worland says. “But we’re not going to stop until every American is news literate.”

Darragh Worland lays out the urgent need for news literacy education to readers of The San Francisco Chronicle in the Jan. 27 piece We need news literacy education in our schools — now! (Please note: Article is behind a paywall.)

She opens the piece by noting the role of conspiracy theories and misinformation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. “Dear reader: By now you likely know that the shocking Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was largely the result of millions of Americans believing in an alternative reality (that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen, even though it wasn’t). The attack was a terrifying example of the destructive, harmful impact of disinformation.”

“The reality that an alternative information ecosystem can come dangerously to life provides even more urgency to the need for news literacy education as a national priority, taught in schools across the spectrum, from Bangor, Maine, to San Diego, Miami and Seattle. Failing to provide our children with the knowledge and skills needed to recognize credible and accurate information is more than a disservice — it’s disempowering, putting them at a significant civic disadvantage as they face a more complex information environment than ever before.

“If a student doesn’t understand the difference between a news story and an opinion column or how to spot dangerously misleading disinformation, the consequences can be dire. Those who believe falsehoods about COVID-19 have flouted public health guidelines, endangering family members and friends. Some have been sickened by ingesting bleach, touted falsely as a COVID-19 treatment; others have died as a result of taking false cures (one example).”

Worland also explains how the loss of standards-based sources of news is only worsening the problem.

“The number of quality, standards-based news organizations — especially at the local level — is shrinking. As news consumers let newspaper subscriptions lapse, gravitating instead to free online sources (many of which are not standards-based), advertisers follow. One in five newspapers across the country has closed, leaving communities across the country with little to no coverage and stripping them of their local watchdogs. By some estimates, 1,300 communities across the country lack any local news outlet, leaving them with no independent oversight of local government and business.

“Why should we care? that the loss of local news outlets results in greater polarization in voting, as residents retreat to those echo chambers online where their biases are encouraged and left unchallenged.

“Add to that a lack of appreciation for the role of a free press in a democracy and growing public disdain for journalists, and you have a recipe for what we saw on display at the Capitol.

“If we don’t teach the next generation of Americans what sets quality journalism apart, give them an appreciation for the central watchdog role journalists play in holding the powerful to account, or help them understand why democracy can’t function without a working independent news media, then we have no hope of turning this dangerous situation around.”

Michigan students tell FOX 17 how they are committed to fact-checking and getting the whole story in the segment Rockford High School students showcase news literacy skills, which aired on Jan. 25. The students produce their own broadcast program Beyond the Rock.

KATC participates in second annual News Literacy Week, the television station based in Lafayette, Louisiana, reports on Jan. 25. The station will premiere stories related to the topic of news literacy on-air and online at katc.com.

The Long Beach Post helps spread the word about National News Literacy Week in the Jan. 25 piece It’s News Literacy Week. Here’s 5 ways you can be a better news consumer. The article offers readers simple and actionable tips for becoming more news-literate, quotes NLP founder and CEO Alan C. Miller and advises the public on ways to get involved in National News Literacy Week.

In the piece Facts over PACs: How corporate America can fight political misinformation for Fortune magazine on Jan. 19, NLP board member Tucker Eskew calls on executives to take a stand against misinformation. He cites NLP’s work and urges business leaders to use their voices to promote facts over fiction during National News Literacy Week (Jan, 25-29).

“Corporate leaders don’t need to be Clark Kent—much less ignore the global aspects of this infodemic—to see how every worthy business goal, from profit-making in a stable nation to the social cohesion that is essential to freedom and prosperity, is at risk.” he writes. “This is a fight we cannot afford to lose. As we say at NLP, we must have a future founded on facts.”

Ken Wood, a former journalist and director of communications for Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio, writes about the importance of NLP’s work in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Dec. 20. In Empower yourself to stop the spread of false information, he tells of learning about NLP after meeting Director of Communications Carol McCarthy at a conference last year and notes that the ability to sort fact from fiction is an “evident and urgent” need not limited by age.

“”So what is at stake here? Why is this important?

“A healthy democracy depends on a free press — warts and all — and whether people have the ability to determine whether information is credible,” Wood says.

He ends with a call to action for readers. “Let’s all get better at separating fact from fiction. There is a lot more at stake here than you might think.”

On C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” today, NLP founder and CEO Alan C. Miller called on the public, the nation’s education system and news media outlets to step up and help combat the virulent spread of misinformation threatening American democracy.

John McArdle, host of the call-in show, spoke with Miller about his recent commentary on how misinformation is creating “alternative realities” for some Americans.

“I think this is one of the great existential challenges of our times. It is a question of whether facts will continue to matter,” Miller said.

During the hour-long program, callers across the nation asked Miller a wide range of questions – from baseless claims of election fraud to instances of media bias. One caller decried the lack of civics education in our nation’s schools, Miller endorsed his view. “I completely agree about the need to bring back civics, to give the next generation a grounding in American government. At the core of that should be critical thinking skills to know how to sort fact and fiction and what information to trust and share,” Miller said. “Our democracy depends on an electorate that is informed and engaged, not misinformed and enraged.”

What the media can do

Turning to questions about the media, Miller warned against painting the industry with a broad brush. He pointed out that standards-based journalism and highly partisan outlets cannot be viewed through the same lens. But he also noted that journalists need to do a better job as the nation transitions to a new presidential administration.

“I think that journalists need to double down on verification, accuracy, transparency and accountability. They need to tell the truth and call out lies and avoid false balance,” he said, calling for tough but fair coverage of President-elect Joe Biden’s administration.

While acknowledging that President Trump will remain a legitimate news story regarding his political influence and legal challenges, Miller recommended that reporters turn off their notifications of his tweets.

Personal responsibility is key

Miller encouraged viewers to be responsible news consumers and to become part of the information solution instead of the misinformation problem. “Everybody has a responsibility to look at anything we encounter, any piece of news and ask ourselves who created this, for what purpose? Is it intended to inform or divide? Is there bias? What about the bias I bring to what I’m looking at? Step back and ask yourself, ‘is this something I should trust, share and act on.’ ”

In asking the public to verify the credibility of the content they consume, he noted that fact-checking organizations can be valuable resources. ”I think the independent fact-checkers play an important role,  and by and large they are credible forces for people to look to when things are in dispute,” he said. He pointed out that they do not ask the public to simply trust their conclusions. “They show their findings and the basis for their determinations and are transparent on where their funding comes from.”

And he urged the public to pledge, “false information stops with me.”

You can watch the full conversation here.

Photograph by Jeff Elkins

Every year, Washingtonian magazine chooses a handful of local residents “who give their time and talents to make this a better place” and names them “Washingtonians of the Year.”

NLP is proud to announce that Alan C. Miller, our founder and CEO, is a 2020 Washingtonian of the Year honoree. Below is an excerpt from the piece recognizing his achievements.

Origin story

When Pulitzer-winning LA Times reporter Alan Miller conceived of the News Literacy Project in 2006, the media — and the world — was in a different place. Facebook and iPhones were just taking off, phrases like “fake news” and “alternative facts” weren’t mainstream, and the educational field of news literacy didn’t exist. But after speaking to his daughter’s sixth-grade classmates, Miller felt it was essential to teach youth how to be “smart, active consumers of news and information”—a goal that has never felt more urgent.

“I was concerned about how they were evaluating a tsunami of information from sources with varying credibility, accountability, and transparency—and that was on a PC,” says Miller, who launched NLP, a national education nonprofit, from his Bethesda home in 2008.

‘Rigorously nonpartisan’

Those tools have come to fruition in Checkology, a free virtual-learning platform for middle- and high-schoolers that teaches how to discern credible information, bias, and misinformation. Checkology, which like NLP is “rigorously nonpartisan,” has been used by educators in all 50 states and dozens of other countries. By 2022, NLP’s goal is to reach 3 million students annually. The news-literacy mission has become even more dire in the pandemic, when discerning fact from fiction can truly be a matter of life or death.

Read the full profile.

KXLY-TV, serving the Spokane, Washington, and Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, region built a segment around NLP’s infographic Seven Steps for Staying Sharp Online. The Dec. 14 segment, Is this true? Here are some tips to fight off misinformation you see online, featured the full graphic and described its contents. “The tips include not letting feelings getting in the way of finding the real information. It also suggests not confusing memes with actual news. The checklist also says “remember that credible information doesn’t ask you to trust it – it shows why you should by clearly attributing the facts it provides to reliable sources.”

The Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan quotes Alan Miller’s column on how the U.S. can restore its global standing as a leader in press freedoms. “Bring back the daily press briefings. Make Biden available through periodic news conferences and interviews with a wide range of outlets. Tell the truth,” Miller is quoted in Sullivan’s Dec. 6 column Trump is leaving press freedom in tatters. Biden can take these bold steps to repair the damage.

“There is a solution, and it’s a matter of restoring something we chose to abandon not very long ago: comprehensive, robust civics education,” NLP’s President and Chief Operations Officer Charles Salter says of the public’s lack of understanding and distrust in American institutions.

His commentary piece, We Americans Risk Losing the Ability to Govern Ourselves. Better Civics Education Can Help, appeared in EdWeek on Nov. 25.

NLP’s Darragh Worland was a guest on a segment of the show Causepods. “I think it’s a fundamental life skill,” Worland says of news literacy. “It’s essential that all schools be teaching some form of news literacy.” The segment Misinformation with Darragh Worland of the Is That a Fact Podcast  aired on Nov. 23.

The misinformation generation gap closes, NLP’s Carol McCarthy writes in a Nov. 20 commentary for the Florida Sun-Sentinel.  “While we may never know which generation is best at recognizing fact from fiction, it’s pretty clear to me that no age group is immune to misinformation, she writes.

“Adopted early in life, the skills and mindset of becoming more news-literate will last a lifetime. But the learning must extend beyond the classroom, too,” McCarthy writes in the piece Neither youth nor maturity makes you immune to misinformation.

Should schools require news literacy? NLP’s Peter Adams joined Jaclyn Siegel, New York State chapter leader for Media Literacy Now, and Mike Johansson, principal lecturer in the School of Communication at the Rochester Institute of Technology, to discuss that question in a pubic radio segment Should news and media literacy be required courses in schools?

The program aired Nov. 9 on Connections, a program on WXXI in Rochester, New York.

“We cannot afford to delay in providing young people with the ability and confidence to navigate our complex information landscape,” says California educator and NLP board member in the Nov. 7 op-ed for EdSurge, The U.S. Election Underscores the Need for Teaching News Literacy in Our Schools.

“News literacy … is a fundamental life skill, as essential to success in the classroom and in life as reading or math,” Ramos says.

NLP’s John Silva was interviewed by KGTV in San Diego  on Nov. 5 for the segment Election rumors permeating social networks underscores need for media literacy. “We don’t like this idea of being uncomfortable that there’s some big thing that we’re not aware of. In the discomfort and the anxiety of not knowing, we might accept [the false information],” he says in order to explain the appeal of conspiracy theories and viral rumors about the 2020 election.

On Nov. 2, the day before the historic 2020 election, NLP’s Peter Adams is quoted in the MIT Technology Review piece How to talk to kids and teens about misinformation and in the New York Times piece Stopping Online Vitriol at the Roots.

WLRN TV in Miami devoted a Nov. 1 segment to covering the NewsLitCamp held for Miam-Dade area educators the previous week.  In ‘It’s A Necessity’: Miami-Dade Teachers Learn How To Spot Misinformation Online, participating educator Silvia Villacis says she looks forward to passing her new skills on to her students. She teaches civics at West Miami Middle School. “If you don’t bother to talk about what’s real, what’s not real, what’s trustworthy, authentic, … you’re doing a disservice to them,” Villacis says, referring to her students. “It’s not a choice anymore. It’s a necessity.”

NLP’s John Silva highlights some of the “red flag phrases” to look out for online in Jimmy Rhoades’ irreverent take on The List. The human need for togetherness and an “us vs. them” framework are triggers that allow red flags to enter our psyche and fuel the spread of misinformation, Silva says in the Oct 29 piece How to Spot Red Flag Phrases in Online Content.

This Media Literacy Week activity created by NLP’s Peter Adams pushes students to ask such questions as, “Am I sure enough about this that I should share it?” “If everybody did that, we’d see a dramatic reduction of misinformation online,” Adams says

It was included in the The New York Times Oct. 26 Tech Fix column, Lesson of the Day: ‘How to Deal With a Crisis of Misinformation.’

“Young people have a right to news literacy education,” NLP’s John Silva says in the piece  Can Your Students Tell the Difference Between Fact and Fiction? for EdSurge on Oct. 20.

Reporter Kimberly Rues directs readers to NLP’s educator-focused digital material, saying “their website is a virtual treasure trove of resources.” She also recommends NLP’s Educator Resources Library. “These materials provide ready-made content that supports the professional development offered in the webinar, but that could also be used independently of NLP’s professional development offerings,” she notes. “One final News Literacy Project resource to mention is Checkology, an interactive platform that provides students with standards-aligned lessons, presented by information experts, including real world examples, Rues says.”

Alan Miller addresses the threat from misinformation in the run-up to the presidential election on WPIX TV in New York City on Oct. 16.

“Misinformation is not only a threat to our public life, but to our public health,” Miller says in the segment, Fact-checking the ‘tsunami’ of misinformation flooding the web before the election.

Miller tells viewers how they can help stop the spread of misinformation, noting that voters have a responsibility to avoid sharing content without verifying it. “Part of hitting that ‘pause’ button is not to immediately share or ‘like’ or forward, because this viral information cannot get the reach it gets without us — often inadvertently — infecting others,” Miller says.

He also highlights NLPs election misinformation “public service announcements in English and Spanish designed to get voters to be cautious about the ‘tsunami’ of political posts flooding the web.”

When consuming news and other information, slow down and be skeptical. That’s the advice NLP’s Peter Adams shares with the New York Times in the Oct. 14 article. How to Deal With a Crisis of Misinformation.

“The No. 1 rule is to slow down, pause and ask yourself, ‘Am I sure enough about this that I should share it?’ If everybody did that, we’d see a dramatic reduction of misinformation online,” Adams advises readers.

NLP’s Senior Vice President of Education Peter Adams discusses the cynicism of Generation Z voters in an Oct. 11 POLITICO article. “Trust in institutions is down across the board, but teens experience even more cynicism about institutions just as a function of their time of life. That can easily lend itself into falling into conspiratorial thinking traps,” he says.

This cynicism that potential first-time voters experience makes it even more imperative that teens receive news literacy education. Such education helps young people learn how to find trustworthy sources of information. If people understand how news works, they’re less likely to fall into cynical thinking, Adams says.

NLP’s founder and CEO  Alan C. Miller addresses news literacy on the podcast The Playbook: David Meltzer on Oct. 6. In Meltzer & McCourt Get Out and Vote Show #2 , Miller discusses the difficulties of navigating today’s complicated information landscape and how news literacy can help.

Darragh Worland, NLP’s vice president of creative services, speaks with Mark Simon, host of the podcast The Journalism Salute, about Becoming a Better News Consumer. In the Oct. 6 episode, Worland discusses NLP’s mission and work. She explains how students, educators and the public can use NLP’s Checkology® e-learning platform and other resources. She also provides advice on how to handle disinformation and misinformation on social media.

In the N.Y. Daily News, NLP’s Darragh Worland writes on how social media use has been shown to skew news judgment. The commentary, Don’t let social media spoil your news judgment: A guide to navigating our information jungle,  ran on Sept. 30. The piece also addresses how news consumers may be falsely confident about the ability to spot unreliable information.

“It is simply dangerous to be misled and falsely confident about content you encounter. This is particularly true when it relates to information on which you base decisions that can impact your health (COVID-19), safety (wildfires) and future (government elections),” Worland writes.

She also offers readers advice on how to strengthen news literacy skills and be more savvy news consumers.

“In this digital age, no one can expect a total eradication of misinformation. But you can learn to counter harmful content and help others do the same by becoming news-literate. Armed with these skills and habits, you can make decisions and take action with confidence, knowing that the information and sources you rely on are credible and reliable.”

Education is the solution to combating misinformation, NLP’s Ebonee Rice says on the Arlington, Va., radio show Choose to Be Curious. Her interview, The News Literacy Project, with Ebonee Rice, aired on Sept. 30.

Host Lynn Borton asks, “With so much coming at us, how are we to tell fact from fiction, truth from fabrication?”

“We believe that education is the solution to help combat misinformation, and educators are on the front line of that fight,” says Rice. She is the vice president of NLP’s educator network.

School Library Journal (SLJ) led its Sept. 29 news section with a write-up promoting NLP’s upcoming webinar series.

Professional Development Course on News Literacy describes the free, four-part series as a way to “hone your skills in helping students make sense of news and other types of information. Essential concepts for students to be reliably informed begins Oct. 6, with What it means to be ‘news-literate’: introduction to news literacy education. Learn key news literacy skills that students must know to be reliably informed. Essential concepts for students to be reliably informed begins Oct. 6, with “What it means to be ‘news-literate.'”

NLP’s John Silva explains how misinformation exploits our emotions in the Sept. 29 article Fact or Fake? How to Help Kids & Adults Spot Misinformation Online on the website 30 Seconds. The media platform’s target audience is busy women, and particularly moms.

“Misinformation manipulates our emotions into believing something is true,” Silva says. “If you find yourself experiencing a strong emotional reaction, pause what you’re doing, open a browser tab and search for key details to verify if what you are seeing is accurate.” It turns out that anger, sadness and even humor can make us accept things as true without evaluating them closely enough, especially if it lines up with something we already believe.

Datanami, a news site that provides insight, analysis and information on big data, writes about the partnership between data firm SAS and NLP. The Sept. 29 article, Testing Data Literacy on Main Street,  focuses on data literacy quiz that NLP and SAS developed. The quiz allows the public to test their data literacy in news consumption. The five-question quiz asks test-takers to gauge the validity of claims based on the supporting evidence or the lack of it.

Election misinformation is the topic of a Sept. 25 article in The Hill, Disinformation, QAnon efforts targeting Latino voters ramp up ahead of presidential election.  NLP founder and CEO Alan C. Miller weighs in on why NLP and the Open Mind Legacy Project joined forces on an election misinformation PSA campaign. “We know that in the current climate disinformation is rampant and we wanted American voters to have very clear guidance, especially during the pandemic, on how to vote,” Miller says.

“We all need to become upstanders for facts and give facts a fighting chance,” he says. “I think that we need a new sense of personal responsibility around the news and information that we consume, and particularly that we share.”

Miller likened it to shifting the ethos around other issues, such as drunk driving, littering and smoking.

“Because ultimately, the consumer is really in charge of what they see and where and when and how they see it, and most important what they do with it. I think people need to play a more responsible role and also push back against those who are sharing and creating and sending things that they should not be.”

The Sept. 13 edition of CNN”s Reliable Sources newsletter, by Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy, included a paragraph about NLP’s election misinformation PSA campaign, with a link to a USA Today op-ed about it.

“The News Literacy Project and The Open Mind Legacy Project are distributing PSAs “to combat malicious fabrication, bots and online trolls that seek to mislead voters and suppress voting.” Alan C. Miller and Alexander Heffner explain the initiative here… (USA Today).”