Students in a classroom listening to their teacher.

NLP in the news this September: Misinformation in the classroom, the military and sports

NLP in the News


This fall, experts at the News Literacy Project have been trusted sources to give guidance for best practices to teach news literacy, explain why certain communities are more vulnerable to mis- and dis-information, and share tips for finding and sharing credible news and information.

As more schools and educators see the need for incorporating news literacy into their classrooms, Peter Adams, who heads research and design, told The New York Times that it’s important to have best practices. Without them, Adams warned lessons could backfire. “Some methods have become entrenched in schools that almost imply that students should question everything they see with an equal amount of skepticism,” Adams said in the piece. “This can invite young people to conclude that all sources of information are equally suspect or, even worse, to inflame a kind of nihilism.”

Before coming to NLP, John Silva, our senior director of professional and community learning, served in the Marines. In this piece by The War Horse, Silva shares insight into why members of the military community are vulnerable to mis- and dis-information campaigns. “When we start to talk about these big things—like patriotism, like our respect and admiration for our troops and our veterans—there’s deep emotions there,” Silva says in the article. “It’s really hard to have a critical conversation.”

Misinformation is everywhere – even in your sports news and information. Mike Webb, our senior vice president of media and marketing and long-time Pittsburgh Steelers football fan, penned an opinion piece full of helpful news literacy tips. Webb writes about a “teachable moment” when he enthusiastically retweeted a claim about head coach Mike Tomlin, only to later discover the post may have been too good to be true. Read it in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

More Updates

For Education Week, educators share how they teach students to question health influencers

An opinion piece in EducationWeek by two educators from New York featured the News Literacy Project’s District Fellowship program. The commentary described how the program supported their efforts to teach students to critically evaluate health and wellness claims on social media. “By the end, our teens had developed habits of healthy skepticism when scrolling their…

NLP in the News

In CNN piece, NLP urges care and transparency as journalism embraces AI

Peter Adams, the News Literacy Project’s Senior Vice President of Research and Design, was featured in a CNN article examining the use of artificial intelligence to generate content in newsrooms and the challenges it raises around verification and transparency. “It is precisely because AI is prone to errors that newsrooms must maintain the ‘fundamental standards…

NLP in the News

Insider Spotlight: Genna Sarnak

Welcome to the Insider Spotlight section, where we feature real questions from our team and answers from educators who are making a difference teaching news literacy. This month, our featured educator is Genna Sarnak from Northfield, Massachusetts, where she teaches digital media literacy to middle school students.

Updates