Newsliteracy-notes

News Literacy in the Digital Era

A new initiative by American's newspaper editors to understand and promote "news literacy" has kicked off with a seminar at The Poynter Institute attended (Aug. 11-12, 2008) by about 40 journalists, educators and students. The American Society of Newspaper Editors arranged the invitation-only seminar in conjunction with Poynter and with support from the Ford Foundation.

Key goals, according to Poynter co-convenor Kelly McBride:

• Become more articulate about news literacy as a topic
• Come up with a series of projects to implement at the local level

Opening Aug.11, Howard Schneider, dean of the Stony Brook University School of Journalism, is talking about his definition of news literacy and what he is doing at Stony Brook -- teaching 1,000 students this semester and committed to teaching 10,000 students in the next few years. His talk was similar to a talk he gave in Lowell, Mass. on June 28, 2008.

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VIEW AUDIO/VIDEO ABOUT STONY BROOK NEWS LITERACY PROGRAM

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He talk a class in the ethics and values in American media. Students were very skeptical of media.

"When I was finished teaching that class, I was convinced that we would need to make a radical change in our plans for the journalism school." The second mission was: "To train the next generation of news consumers . . . and it was a mission that was as important if not more important than teaching the next generation of journalists."

"We began to pander," instead of realizing that we weren't at the heart. The NIE programs were the first thing that was cut. "Even the NIE programs, in retrospect, were really misguided." "We thought this was building another generation, it was all run by the circulation department, it was a marketing intiative. It was all to boosts sales .... we really didn't understand our audience, we didn't understand what was going on."

"News literacy is not about selling newspapers," says Schneider. But he says if we can create an audience that knows what news is about, it will help many things. "It is also not about technology."

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NEWS LITERACY CURRICULUM: OUTCOMES

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A working definition from Schneider: "News literacy is the ability to use critical thinking skills to judge the reliability and credibility of news reports, whether they come via print, television or the internet."

"Media literacy" is a broader area, says Schneider. "It's the ability to access, analyze and evaluate media messages across an array of platforms . . . journalism is one tributary in media literacy. What we have done is taken that tributary and blow it out, to make it the center in everything we do." Why? asks Schneider. He answers: Because news is the greatest educational tool there is. The ability to assess news is a critical skill of citizenship. He says democracy can only flourish with an informed citizenry, and quality journalism can only be sustain by a public that recognizes it and is willing to support it.

Schneider says the news literacy course at Stony Brook tries to teach students that if they fail to interpret news stories correctly, it could have negative consequences on their lives. There is lots of confusion between news and opinion, he said.