Here’s the latest installment of a regular feature I’ve been running for several years: lessons from the nonprofit News Literacy Project (NLP), which aims to teach students and the public how to sort fact from fiction in our digital — and contentious — age. With the spread of rumors and baseless accusations on social and partisan media sites, there has never been a time in recent U.S. history when this skill has been as important as now.
The material in this post comes from the Sift, the organization’s newsletter for educators, which has nearly 22,000 subscribers. Published weekly during the school year, it explores timely examples of misinformation, addresses media and press freedom topics, explores social media trends and issues, and includes discussion prompts and activities for the classroom. Get Smart About News, modeled on the Sift, is a free weekly newsletter for the public.
NLP has an e-learning platform, Checkology, that helps educators teach middle and high school students how to identify credible information, seek out reliable sources and know what to trust, what to dismiss and what to debunk.
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It also gives them an appreciation of the importance of the First Amendment and a free press. All of the NLP’s resources and programs, including Checkology, are free. Since 2016, more than 42,000 educators and 375,000 students in all 50 states, D.C. and more than 120 other countries have registered to use the platform.
Here’s material from the Monday edition...
The Justice Department has fired back at the Southern Poverty Law Center after it filed an injunction against Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for saying the group didn’t share information from...