Rarely a week goes by without having to explain to my 70-something-year-old parents why the WhatsApp story they forwarded isn’t true. “It doesn’t matter that your super-smart, highly educated friend sent it to you,” I tell them time and again. Then I walk them through distinguishing a legitimate news story from a random forward, and the basics of sourcing.
On the other end of the spectrum, I often do the same for my 10-year-old daughter. Her interests skew more BlackPink and Justin Bieber than politics, but the news literacy issues are the same.
While running these familial fact-checking interventions, I’ve come to realize that news organizations are missing an opportunity to provide accessible news literacy guides to the biggest stories of the day — particularly those geared towards children.
As journalists, most of us firmly believe that a free press is the bedrock of democracy. How better to serve democracy than by educating the voters of tomorrow to be savvy news consumers?
News literacy isn’t a particularly novel idea, but what’s been missing thus far is the commitment to make it a core part of journalism. Rather than outsourcing efforts to a smattering of nonprofits, it’s time for newsrooms to own that responsibility, and I think we will begin to do that in 2021.
All of us who work in news have been wringing our hands about dis- and misinformation and fact-checking at scale. Even tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, with nearly unlimited checkbooks, struggle to find adequate solutions. And with the impending rise of deepfaked audio and videos, there’s very little any one news outlet or company will be able to do to counter that type of disinformation.
A far more practical solution to our information woes would be arming our youngest readers and viewers with an arsenal of tools to make sense of all the information coming at them.
Teaching children (and other news consumers) to be active rather than passive recipients could also help pierce the information bubbles we live in. Just think how different kids’ engagement with the news and society would be if we started including clear guides with our stories discussing things like: Why is this news and how did we decide that? Why did we choose to speak to these people? Who is most affected? Why does this issue matter? What’s the historical context?
We should move beyond mere editorial transparency and offer a few questions for them to ponder: What do the people involved want me to think about this issue and why? Who created this story, and do they have an agenda? How does this compare to how others are talking about this issue? These critical thinking skills, if they’re made a core part of the news experience, could shift how the next generation interacts with and processes information. And these companion guides could be built for a variety of stories, not just highbrow news.
Parents and families could use them as conversation starters and let their children lead the discussion. I’m old enough to have grown up watching the nightly news with my parents, which provided a platform from which I could start to understand world events and my parents’ perspectives.
Another natural channel to reach children is via school curricula. Journalists should collaborate with teachers to make sure the guides would be impactful for all children.
Research shows that news literacy efforts are most effective when practiced over time. So imagine the lifelong impact on children who start learning these skills in elementary schools and strengthen that muscle over time through conversations with their teachers, families, and peers. These sophisticated consumers could force platforms like Google and Facebook (and their successors) to be far more transparent than they are today.
This seems like a ripe area to apply artificial intelligence. If we can use AI to create, produce, and distribute stories, then surely we can automate some of the work required for these types of guides and tools, whether they be graphic comic strips, web extras, or something else.
Think back to the impact of television news and the widespread media adoption of user-generated videos. They allowed viewers to feel like they were at the scene, experiencing what was happening, and that change dramatically shifted people’s understanding. In the same way, parting the editorial curtains even further and offering children a roadmap to critically examine the content they are consuming could help create a populace less susceptible to manipulation.
Sumi Aggarwal is director of collaborations at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting.
Rarely a week goes by without having to explain to my 70-something-year-old parents why the WhatsApp story they forwarded isn’t true. “It doesn’t matter that your super-smart, highly educated friend sent it to you,” I tell them time and again. Then I walk them through distinguishing a legitimate news story from a random forward, and the basics of sourcing.
On the other end of the spectrum, I often do the same for my 10-year-old daughter. Her interests skew more BlackPink and Justin Bieber than politics, but the news literacy issues are the same.
While running these familial fact-checking interventions, I’ve come to realize that news organizations are missing an opportunity to provide accessible news literacy guides to the biggest stories of the day — particularly those geared towards children.
As journalists, most of us firmly believe that a free press is the bedrock of democracy. How better to serve democracy than by educating the voters of tomorrow to be savvy news consumers?
News literacy isn’t a particularly novel idea, but what’s been missing thus far is the commitment to make it a core part of journalism. Rather than outsourcing efforts to a smattering of nonprofits, it’s time for newsrooms to own that responsibility, and I think we will begin to do that in 2021.
All of us who work in news have been wringing our hands about dis- and misinformation and fact-checking at scale. Even tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, with nearly unlimited checkbooks, struggle to find adequate solutions. And with the impending rise of deepfaked audio and videos, there’s very little any one news outlet or company will be able to do to counter that type of disinformation.
A far more practical solution to our information woes would be arming our youngest readers and viewers with an arsenal of tools to make sense of all the information coming at them.
Teaching children (and other news consumers) to be active rather than passive recipients could also help pierce the information bubbles we live in. Just think how different kids’ engagement with the news and society would be if we started including clear guides with our stories discussing things like: Why is this news and how did we decide that? Why did we choose to speak to these people? Who is most affected? Why does this issue matter? What’s the historical context?
We should move beyond mere editorial transparency and offer a few questions for them to ponder: What do the people involved want me to think about this issue and why? Who created this story, and do they have an agenda? How does this compare to how others are talking about this issue? These critical thinking skills, if they’re made a core part of the news experience, could shift how the next generation interacts with and processes information. And these companion guides could be built for a variety of stories, not just highbrow news.
Parents and families could use them as conversation starters and let their children lead the discussion. I’m old enough to have grown up watching the nightly news with my parents, which provided a platform from which I could start to understand world events and my parents’ perspectives.
Another natural channel to reach children is via school curricula. Journalists should collaborate with teachers to make sure the guides would be impactful for all children.
Research shows that news literacy efforts are most effective when practiced over time. So imagine the lifelong impact on children who start learning these skills in elementary schools and strengthen that muscle over time through conversations with their teachers, families, and peers. These sophisticated consumers could force platforms like Google and Facebook (and their successors) to be far more transparent than they are today.
This seems like a ripe area to apply artificial intelligence. If we can use AI to create, produce, and distribute stories, then surely we can automate some of the work required for these types of guides and tools, whether they be graphic comic strips, web extras, or something else.
Think back to the impact of television news and the widespread media adoption of user-generated videos. They allowed viewers to feel like they were at the scene, experiencing what was happening, and that change dramatically shifted people’s understanding. In the same way, parting the editorial curtains even further and offering children a roadmap to critically examine the content they are consuming could help create a populace less susceptible to manipulation.
Sumi Aggarwal is director of collaborations at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting.
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again