9
Journalism
students from
Frank Sinatra
School of the
Arts check
multiple
sources to
verify the
credibility of a
news story.
Photo by Matt
Scheiner
opinions, it is getting increasingly
harder for young people to
distinguish between fact and fiction
in the news. This is why journalism
educators need to explicitly teach
students about news literacy on a
regular basis throughout the year.
With the 24-hour news cycle
taking over mobile screens, young
people are being bombarded
with information from multiple
news sources by the minute.
Oftentimes, students get their news
from unreliable sources or from
information posted on social media
without being verified, much less
read in its entirety.
to help students identify “fake news.”
Google and Facebook and other
digital companies are helping with
the initiative.
Back home, more and more media
institutions and school leaders are
suggesting that students need a
formal education in news literacy,
because of the way the world now
consumes and interprets media. And
while teaching journalism naturally
lends itself to the study of news
literacy, teachers need to give it
more emphasis in the classroom.
According to a recent New
York Times article, the Italian
government is experimenting in
instituting a curriculum in its schools
The ability to make informed
decisions and to participate in a free,
democratic society are the pillars of
news literacy, and it all begins with
ensuring the credibility of sources,
a practice students are becoming
more fluent in.
Katharine Kosin, an educator at
Washington, D.C.’s Newseum, said
education in news literacy has
always been important for people
of all ages, given that the news we
consume influences the decisions,
big and small, we make in our
everyday lives.
Findings from a recent Pew
Research Center report about
today’s digital news media indicated
that two-thirds of Americans (67
percent) get at least some news on
social media.
The power of social media and its
influence on our students’ media
appetite is why an education
in news literacy is becoming an
essential part of teaching, not only
in journalism classrooms around the
country, but in curricula around the
world.
We must give students the tools
they need to not only assess the
veracity of the media they consume,
but to enable them to sift through
the static to make more informed
news choices. This is the goal of
teaching news literacy.
MAT T SCHEINER
Matt Scheiner is a journalism and English
teacher at Frank Sinatra School of the
Arts in New York City. He is a former
advertising copywriter and freelance
journalist and has written for
The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal,
The Surfer’s Journal, GearPatrol.com,
FADER and Global Rhythm Magazine.
“We need to be able to know
what news to trust so that we
make informed choices, and
misinformation has a corrosive
effect on our society,” Kosin said.
“While misinformation is not new, it
has become more easily widespread
today thanks to new technologies
like social media.”
Kosin also thinks that students
should be learning the tactics of
news literacy at a younger age.