The News Literacy Challenge was launched additional than a ten years back by Alan Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-profitable former reporter at the Los Angeles Instances, and it has come to be the foremost service provider of news literacy education and learning. You can study far more about the firm and its sources and plans below.
The materials in this article will come from the Sift, the organization’s newsletter for educators, which has much more than 23,000 subscribers. Posted weekly throughout the school calendar year, it explores timely examples of misinformation, addresses media and push independence subject areas, discusses social media trends and challenges, and contains dialogue prompts and routines for the classroom. Get Wise About Information, modeled on the Sift, is a free of charge weekly e-newsletter for the general public.
The Information Literacy Project’s browser-dependent e-discovering system, Checkology, helps educators train center and substantial college college students how to identify credible info, look for out responsible resources and know what to trust, what to dismiss and what to debunk.
It also offers them an appreciation of the great importance of the Very first Amendment and a no cost press. Checkology, and all of NLP’s sources and programs, are no cost. Considering the fact that 2016, far more than 37,000 educators in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and extra than 120 other international locations have registered to use the system. Given that August 2020, far more than 3,000 educators and much more than 125,000 college students have actively utilized Checkology.
Here is substance from the May well 2 edition of the Sift:
This college year, Information Goggles has aimed to supply a at the rear of-the-scenes glance at journalism via films of discussions with specialist journalists about their perform. We’ve spoken to journalists from Oklahoma Watch, the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Public Radio, the 19th* and Reuters. Together the way, we’ve shined a light on key information literacy concepts, like sourcing, watchdog reporting and journalism benchmarks. We will return in the tumble with additional News Goggles sources!
Note: You can check out past Information Goggles videos, annotations and activities in the News Literacy Project’s Useful resource Library under “Classroom Actions.”
1. A California sheriff’s recent attempts to goal a Los Angeles Times reporter are portion of a trend of public officials utilizing their power to undercut the function of journalists, publish Elahe Izadi and Paul Farhi of The Washington Submit. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva announced at a the latest information conference that Instances reporter Alene Tchekmedyian would be bundled in a prison leak investigation adhering to her watchdog reporting on a departmental coverup involving a deputy kneeling on an inmate’s head. Amid widespread criticism, the sheriff backed off his remarks, but push independence advocates say such actions can nevertheless have a chilling outcome on other reporting on matters of community curiosity.
• Discuss: Why would these in electric power seek “to punish or drive back on journalists for articles they don’t like”? What are some means that push freedoms can be limited? How can journalists in a place with legal or constitutional protections however practical experience limitations?
• Notion: Inquire college students how they think press freedoms in the United States compare to other nations. Exactly where would they rank the United States? Then, have pupils examine the Reporters Without Borders 2021 international press freedom ranking. Are any of the rankings astonishing? How does the U.S. look at?
• A different strategy: Invite a journalist from NLP’s Newsroom to Classroom listing to go over press freedoms and share activities connected to the situation with students.
• Source: “Press Freedoms Close to the World” (Checkology virtual classroom).
2. The desire to stay clear of conflict performs a vital purpose in how and regardless of whether people today problem misinformation on particular messaging platforms these types of as WhatsApp and Fb Messenger, in accordance to a the latest report from the Everyday Misinformation Challenge. Scientists carried out in-depth interviews with 102 people in Britain and examined how social norms shaped their responses to coronavirus vaccine falsehoods shared in individual messaging groups. They found that persons — anxious about “undermining team cohesion by provoking conflict” — were hesitant to speak up. But, the report mentioned, failing to connect with out falsehoods in good friend, spouse and children or school groups can tacitly legitimize misinformation and “contribute to its even further unfold.”
• Discuss: Do you communicate up when relatives or close friends share misinformation? Why or why not? If so, what type of technique do you use? Is it powerful? If not, what do you feel would make you sense additional comfy contacting out falsehoods?
• Concept: Use this infographic to assistance college students make a plan for how they can discuss up the next time folks they know share misinformation.
• Related: “Millions rely on non-public messaging applications to continue to keep in contact. They’re ripe with misinformation” (Saher Khan and Vignesh Ramachandran, PBS NewsHour).
Dig deeper: Use this consider sheet to further examine conflict avoidance and personal duty in calling out misinformation.
Viral movie is not the Russian warship Moskva
NO: The ship in this viral video clip is not the Russian warship Moskva, which sank in the Black Sea on April 14.
Yes: It is video clip of a missile check on a decommissioned ship conducted by the Norwegian Navy in 2013.
NewsLit takeaway: Sensational footage of fires, artillery and other armed service beat scenes has frequently gone viral out of context all through the war concerning Ukraine and Russia — typically to chase clicks and engagement on the web. As is the scenario all through numerous major information occasions, purveyors of misinformation seized on the sinking of Russia’s flagship missile cruiser for consideration — and the stunning movie of the decommissioned Norwegian naval ship exploding was effortless to go off out of context. However these kinds of false context rumors are generally recirculated without having getting altered, in this occasion the authentic online video was flipped, most likely to make it much more challenging for point-checkers to identify the real source.
There was no conspiracy to cover Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial
NO: The truth that Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial for sexual intercourse trafficking in 2021 was not broadcast even though other court proceedings — these kinds of as the 2022 defamation trial involving Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard — are stay-streamed is not due to a conspiracy to shield effective men and women on Maxwell’s “client checklist,” as this meme indicates.
Certainly: Maxwell’s criminal demo took area in federal court docket, the place “electronic media protection … has been expressly prohibited” due to the fact 1946.
Indeed: Depp’s defamation accommodate from Heard is a civil subject being experimented with in a Virginia point out court, in which electronic media protection is permitted at the discretion of judges.
NewsLit takeaway: Conspiratorial wondering can guide people today to leap to conclusions and misinterpret innocuous specifics as “evidence” that supports their desired theories about the environment. In this situation, fake rumors about Maxwell’s trial stem from a persistent perception that strong establishments are conspiring to secure influential folks associated with Jeffrey Epstein — the financier who died by suicide when awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy costs in 2019. Conspiracy theorists indulged in the similar variety of determined reasoning when Kyle Rittenhouse was tried out for murder in Wisconsin point out court in 2021. Numerous iterations of this extremely deceptive declare have just lately circulated on-line, such as in an April 25 tweet by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).