Report calls for schools to teach news literacy

A new report by PEN America — Faking News: Fraudulent News and the Fight for Truth — calls on schools to provide news literacy lessons in the classroom, and on teacher-preparation programs to train educators to teach them. The best way that the general public can be protected from the problems associated with “fake news” and misinformation, the authors write, is to “inoculate” people with news literacy.

We’ve been leading that call to action for nearly 10 years, helping students in middle schools and high schools learn how to discern fact from fiction in the digital age.

“We are teaching them to be skeptical about what they see and hear and read and to question whether they should believe it, share it or act on it,” our founder and CEO, Alan C. Miller, said in an interview for the report.

PEN America is a New York City-based nonprofit that focuses on free speech and human rights.

Keep reading for more about its recommendations and our solutions for news literacy education.