N E W S M AT TE R S
The Importance of
News Literacy in a Digital Age
T
By Richard J. Levine
Richard J. Levine is president
of the board of directors of the
Dow Jones News Fund, Inc.
Since joining Dow Jones & Co.
in 1966, he has served as vice
president for news and staff
development, executive editor
of Dow Jones Newswires,
vice president of information
services, editorial director
of electronic publishing and
Washington correspondent
and columnist for The Wall
Street Journal. He holds a B.S.
from Cornell University and
an M.S. from the Columbia
University Graduate School of
Journalism. E-mail: richard.
[email protected].
he digital revolution
has had a massive and
disruptive impact on
journalism, a subject that
I have written about repeatedly
in Adviser Update over the past
10 years. As Adviser Update
itself becomes a digital-only
publication with this issue,
after almost a half century in
print, this column will continue
to focus on the intersection of
news and technology under a
new name, News Matters
With the growth of the Internet,
readers have increasingly
turned to the Web for news.
In an electronically connected
world, they have instant access
to an expanding and dizzying
array of online sources. Using
smartphones, tablets, laptops
and desktop computers, we
access news from digital
publications, search engines like
Google and social networks like
Twitter and Facebook as well as
directly from the websites and
apps of legacy print newspapers
and magazines.
In a digital environment, news
literacy, commonly defined
as the ability to “judge the
reliability and credibility of news
reports and news sources,” has
emerged as a critical skill.
Two prominent journalists have
emerged as major figures in this
field, identifying early the issue
and then shaping institutions
and programs to promote news
literacy. The two are Howard
Schneider, under whose
editorial leadership Newsday
won eight Pulitzer
Prizes, and Alan
Miller, a former
investigative
reporter with the
Los Angeles Times
Alan C. Miller
who won the 2003
Pulitzer Prize for
national reporting.
President of Center for News Literacy
As the founding dean of the
journalism school at Stony
Brook University, Schneider
recognized that students were
having problems navigating the
flood of news and information
on the web. In 2005, he helped
develop the nation’s first course
in news literacy and currently
serves as executive director of
the school’s Center for News
Literacy (CNL).
Miller discovered the need for
news literacy training while