NLP News

As the U.S. Senate begins the confirmation hearing for Miguel Cardona to become the next Secretary of Education, it must ensure that he prioritizes a robust civics curriculum for the nation’s middle schools and high schools that includes news literacy education. One of the primary purposes of public education is to teach the next generation…

To work toward reducing the harmful effects of misinformation on young minds, NLP is launching NewsLit Nation, the home of its News Literacy Educator Network. NewsLit Nation members advocate for news literacy education and support educators helping students navigate the complex digital news ecosystem. With educators on the frontline of the fight against misinformation, NewsLit…

Students in Lisa Ruehlow’s Media Literacy class at Amery High School in Wisconsin combined creativity and their Checkology® lessons to create public service announcements about the importance of news literacy for young people. And two of them took top honors for the national PSA contest sponsored by the News Literacy Project (NLP) and The E.W.…

In Texas, an air conditioning repairman is run off the road and assaulted by a former police captain trying to find forged presidential election ballots. Closer to home, you learn your cousin is convinced of widespread voter fraud. A suicide bomber detonates a massive explosion in downtown Nashville, possibly targeting the AT&T building over 5G…

During a news literacy unit, seventh-graders in Jeff Rosen’s history class learned about different categories of information and the dangers of misinformation. They also learned about themselves and their place in the information ecosystem. “They began to identify some of the harmful things they were seeing,” says Rosen, a social studies teacher at The Joseph…

When the Houston Independent School District started the 2020-21 school year with 100% remote learning, journalism educator David Fanucchi needed to find an engaging way to teach news literacy to his students at Margaret Long Wisdom High School. A colleague at Houston’s Bellaire High School, Andrea Negri, suggested NLP’s Checkology® virtual classroom. The browser based,…

Scott Zwierzchowski teaches civics to students in grades 11 and 12 at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago. In September 2020, he and his colleagues implemented a short news literacy unit. Their goal is to prepare students to evaluate sources and sort fact from fiction throughout the year. NLP recently checked in with Scott to…

As recent events have demonstrated, false conspiracy theories online can fuel dangerous actions in real life.  In this context, NLP is introducing a new lesson to educate students and the public about how conspiratorial thinking develops and its effects. The comprehensive “Conspiratorial Thinking” lesson, included with NLP’s free Checkology® e-learning platform, seeks to help people…

With information – and misinformation – surging around recent national events, the News Literacy Project and The E.W. Scripps Company are teaming up for National News Literacy Week 2021, which begins with a national public awareness campaign to promote news literacy and the role of a free press in American democracy. This second annual National…

We deplore the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol today by a lawless mob. While we support the right to peaceful assembly and free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment, this was an anti-democratic attempt to prevent the culmination of a free and fair election. The attack on the Congress — and the post-election events…

If 2020 has made anything clear, it’s that the future of our democracy depends on our collective ability to sort fact from fiction — and teaching students news literacy skills is crucial to this. To build our local footprint through community organizing efforts in the fight against misinformation, we have launched a News Literacy Ambassador…

By Greg McCaffery and Alan C. Miller Our world has been shaken and transformed since we shared our first annual report with you. In fact, it often feels like last fall was a decade ago. Read the report here. We’re proud to say that NLP has responded to the myriad challenges wrought by COVID-19 with…

Misinformation and conspiracy theories thrive when curiosity and controversy are widespread and conclusive information is scarce or unavailable. The deeply polarized 2020 presidential election not only produced these conditions, it sustained them as ballots in a number of swing states with narrow vote margins were adjudicated and carefully counted. To be sure, viral rumors swirled…

“The voters have spoken, and now it’s up to our state election officials to fairly count all the votes. As key states methodically complete the process of tallying their ballots, it’s vital that we do not let misinformation fill the void while we await the final count. “We urge the news media, state officials and…

This piece is part of a series, presented by our partner SAS, that explores the role of data in understanding the COVID-19 pandemic. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field. (Check out other posts in the series on our Get Smart About COVID-19 Misinformation page.) by Mary Osborne Are communities of…

When Shane Harris, an intelligence and national security reporter at The Washington Post, was in fourth grade in the mid-1980s, he received an informal introduction to news literacy. As part of his language arts and English class, Harris and his classmates spent a week learning how to read the newspaper. They started with the front…

Since 2008, NLP has helped students across the U.S. and beyond learn to sort fact from fiction. Now, to meet the urgent need for news literacy among people of all ages, we are unveiling free tools and resources for the public. This includes a customized version of our signature e-learning platform, Checkology®. This expansion of…

NLP and The Open Mind Legacy Project (OMLP) released public service announcements today to educate voters on how to avoid being misinformed about the November elections. Comcast, The E.W. Scripps Company and public media stations will air the video and audio PSAs, which also will be featured in a paid and organic digital ad campaign…

Making sense of data: How to be savvy about data in the news is is the conclusion of a series, presented by our partner SAS, exploring the role of data in understanding our world. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field. Data is one of the best ways to understand our world,…

Making sense of data: Spotlight on data in social media is the sixth in a series, presented by our partner SAS, exploring the role of data in understanding our world. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field. Like infographics, social media and other forms of user-generated content pose unique challenges regarding data.…

Making sense of data: Special look at issues with infographics is the fifth in a series, presented by our partner SAS, exploring the role of data in understanding our world. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field. Infographics are one of the most visual ways to tell stories with data. They are…

Making sense of data: Evaluating claims made from data is the fourth in a series, presented by our partner SAS, exploring the role of data in understanding our world. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field. Every day people use data to better understand the world. This helps them make decisions and…

Making sense of data: Understanding complications with data collection is the third in a series, presented by our partner  SAS, exploring the role of data in understanding our world. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field.   As we have seen, statistics and visual representations of data can be misleading. But what…

Making sense of Data: Exploring statistics in the the media is the second in a series, presented by our partner SAS, exploring the role of data in understanding our world. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field. “Numbers don’t lie” is a phrase we often hear to support the idea that…

Making sense of data: Diving into charts and graphs is the first in a series, presented by our partner SAS, exploring the role of data in understanding our world. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field.   Charts and graphs are useful tools for communicating complex information. They allow consumers to…

The series described below, presented by our partner  SAS, explores the role of data in understanding our world. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field.   Data can be a powerful tool. It helps us to understand the world with more precision and greater clarity.  Data is often the foundation for research,…

The rights of all Americans to freely assemble and to bring grievances to the government’s doorstep are intrinsic to American democracy and  enshrined in the First Amendment. It’s what we’ve done for generations, perhaps most memorably on Aug. 28, 1963, when 250,000 people descended on Washington, D.C., to participate in the March on Washington for Jobs…

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote. It took the women’s suffrage movement decades to achieve that goal, thanks to entrenched discrimination that severely restricted women’s lives. Opposition to women’s suffrage relied on false narratives that seem particularly…

NLP is now offering its signature e-learning platform Checkology® free to help ease the transition to remote teaching and hybrid learning environments for educators and families. By removing barriers to access, NLP will support educators across the country with essential news literacy lessons at a time of urgent need. Misinformation about COVID-19, the upcoming presidential…

We are pleased to welcome two esteemed colleagues to NLP’s board of directors: Enrique Acevedo and Whit Ayres. Enrique and Whit bring diverse perspectives, significant professional expertise and a passion for our mission to NLP’s board. Their contributions will help us implement our strategic expansion and solidify our position as the nation’s leading provider of…

The sixth of August marks 55 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. The legislation outlawed discriminatory voting practices adopted in many Southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests and poll taxes. The Act’s goal was to make it impossible to thwart the aims of the 15th Amendment to…

This piece is part of a series, presented by our partner SAS, that explores the role of data in understanding the COVID-19 pandemic. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field. (Check out other posts in the series on our Get Smart About COVID-19 Misinformation page.) As the United States enters its…

Virginia educator Patricia Hunt is the recipient of NLP’s inaugural Educator of the Year Award for the dedication and innovation she brings to her teaching of news literacy — an essential life skill for the digital age — and for her wider advocacy of news literacy education. Hunt, who teaches 12th grade government courses at…

It’s a good bet that Lyn Millner’s students will be ready to do some serious fact-checking this fall leading up to the presidential election. They’re already experienced at it. Millner, who teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Fla., created the Vote Vetter project during the midterm elections in 2018. Her News Literacy…

Indira Lakshmanan, senior executive editor at National Geographic and a veteran foreign and national correspondent, is the 2020 recipient of NLP’s John S. Carroll Journalist of the Year Award. Lakshmanan is a frequent TV and radio commentator on journalism and journalistic ethics, served as the first Newmark Chair in Journalism Ethics at the Poynter Institute,…

Kristen Locker, a new graduate of Florida Gulf Coast University, is NLP’s 2020 Gwen Ifill Student of the Year. Locker, the first college student to receive the award, was nominated by her professor, Lyn Millner, a finalist for NLP’s Educator of the Year Award. “Kristen told us, ‘Checkology helped me navigate where I get my…

Here’s a “problem” any educator might like to have: Students find their class material so engaging that the teacher has to rein in the class discussion. That’s exactly what Jake Cameron and Angelica Cardona experienced at Queens High School of Teaching, Liberal Arts and the Sciences in Queens, New York. Using the Checkology® virtual classroom…

Editor’s note: Earlier this year we wrote about Conor Murphy, a teacher at West Genesee High School in Camillus, N.Y.  Murphy recently was named a finalist for NLP’s 2020 Educator of the Year Award. At that time he described NLP’s impact on his teaching: “My entire craft as an educator has been influenced so heavily…

As the COVID-19 pandemic began delivering a surge of misinformation to our social media feeds and inboxes, a student in Denise Wood’s Honors World Literature and Composition class emailed her. “I thank you for teaching us about misinformation last semester. It has helped a ton in recent days as I see loads of false claims,…

As a former Reuters correspondent in Chicago, I often reported on excessive force by law enforcement, including the deaths of Black people and the ensuing protests. The awful, unjust events of recent weeks and months — the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and the racism faced by the Central Park birder…