User:RadarScreen448/sandbox

The News Literacy Project

The News Literacy Project (NLP) is a nonpartisan national education nonprofit, based in Washington, D.C., that works with educators and journalists to teach middle school and high school students how to sort fact from fiction in the digital age. NLP provides students with skills to become smart, active consumers of news and other information and engaged and informed participants in civic life.

Mission

The potential for misinformation has never been greater, and the concept of news literacy — defined as the ability to evaluate the credibility of news and other information as a student, a consumer and a citizen — has not been widely taught in U.S. classrooms.

NLP meets this need by partnering with educators to build curriculum materials and other educational assets that enhance their ability to teach this content. NLP also offers professional development workshops to assist educators, schools, school districts and other educational organizations in introducing news literacy into their classrooms. Its primary educational resource is the Checkology® virtual classroom.

NLP mobilizes journalists from all types of media to join forces with educators to ensure that young people have the skills to understand that all information is not created equal. It uses the standards of quality journalism as an aspirational yardstick to determine what information to believe, share and act on. Understanding those standards also helps students develop an understanding of the importance of the First Amendment and a free press in a democracy, especially the watchdog role.

NLP’s goal is to see news literacy embedded in the American education experience as an essential skill, giving the next generation an appreciation of credible journalism and the skills to be active participants in a robust democracy.

History

The News Literacy Project was founded in 2008 by Alan C. Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter[ 1] at the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau. After speaking to sixth-grade students at his daughter’s middle school, he began to think about the impact that many journalists could have if they shared their expertise and experience with the nation’s students. The idea seemed particularly meaningful as more and more Americans, young and old, were turning to social media as a news source, and as it was becoming increasingly challenging to discern news from raw information, spin and misinformation.

Leadership

Alan C. Miller (founder and CEO)

Charles Salter (president and COO)

The members of NLP’s board of directors have extensive backgrounds in journalism, education, technology and philanthropy. They include Gregory McCaffery, chairman emeritus of Bloomberg BNA (now Bloomberg Industry Group); Walt Mossberg, former technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal and co-founder of the tech website Recode; Juliet Stipeche, education advisor to the mayor of Houston and former president of the Houston Independent School District; and Karen Wickre, former editorial director at Twitter and former senior media liaison at Google.