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I suppose it was bound to happen as we have more and more media and more and

more people making media.

We now find that people's ideas about what is news

are becoming detached from reality.

This is not a big problem for you because you're a person who creates news reports.

You know better than most people what news is, and

you can tell the difference between what is fact and what is fiction.

The problem is, not everyone knows as much about news as you do.

So today, we now have to start talking about news literacy,

something we never talked about before.

Your audience does not see the same bright line distinction that you see

between news and other kinds of content that is out there.

This can be a big problem.

The problem is, that it is much harder and

more expensive to produce news than to produce other kinds of content.

And the value of the work you produce must be recognized if it can be appreciated.

The other problem is that people are getting fooled by content,

online content especially, that is not news but they think it is.

So let's take a few minutes to talk about news literacy, what it is and

how you can help your audience understand the difference between news and

other content they find.

At its most basic level,

news literacy is about knowing that difference between fact and fiction.

News literacy, or being literate about news, makes people better news consumers.

That's a plus for you.

And better news consumers are more likely to come see what you're doing

rather than whatever else they find on the internet.

The News Literacy Project defines it this way,

news literacy teaches 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.

That's a quote from the News Literacy Project.

As we have seen in the specialization about pictures, telling lies.

A stories can also tell lies.

Stories can be made up, they can be taken from other places, and

there's a whole range of content that looks like, feels like,

sounds like news, but in many cases, it just isn't.

It's sponsored by somebody else.

It may be propaganda.

It may be coming from a particular point of view.

It might just be sloppy, and you can't count on it.

I'll give you a couple of examples of why this happens.

One is that some material is put together in such a sloppy way.

That it just isn't verified, or it isn't sourced, or it amounts to rumors and

speculation masquerading is the truth.

News content needs to be verified, it needs to be accurate and

that is central to what we're talking about in this whole specialization.

Another reason is that news is perishable, it changes and not just in a day or

an hour, sometimes it changes by the minute.

If someone who is not really following the story takes a slice of time and

posts that information on their website, and

treats it as though that's the story, people who aren't following the place

where the news is being updated will be stuck in time someplace back there.

The savvy news consumer picks sources that are credible, and

follows them as stories develop because that consumer knows that the source will

stay on top of the store and report when things changed.

And we have to do that too.

If we put a story out there and it has developments we're responsible for

posting those developments.

Our third problem as if we needed one is that in this lightning fast world when

an idea can be communicated around the world in seconds.

Bad information, or misinformation is reported, circulated, and

takes on a life of its own.

There have been many cases where people's deaths were reported on twitter,

when they were not in fact dead.

This has moved stock markets, and

it has moved people to tears when they heard false reports about people dying.

A fourth problem is that some people will circulate stories that they know

are not true.

Sometimes it is a prank.

Take a look at this page about the Lake Michigan whale,

a fresh water whale that also does not exist.

Worse than this is disinformation or

misinformation circulated during things like political campaigns,

information that's not true about the other candidate, or known to be true but

put in there to influence news events and blown out of proportion.

The journalistic values that have been the core of this specialization

will keep you on the news side of news literacy.

The challenge will be conveying to your audience the fact that what you do

is legitimate.

And some of the other material they might see is not legitimate.

How do we do this?

One, develop the brand and reputation as someone who bus missed,

who's the outlet from truth, and who fact checks other sources of information.

Become the truth squad.

Build a brand of reliability and credibility, and people will come to you.

Two, call out others who circulate false information on purpose.

It is not being a blowhard.

We're not playing unfairly.

It is simply protecting news space and

helping your readers sift through all this information they have to deal with.

Be their ally as they understand news literacy.

Three, get in front of your community in person and

talk to people about what is news, how news was reported, found,

developed, checked and explained the difference between news and fiction, or

cut and paste jobs where people just take news from other places and

put it together in a stale or distorted arrangement.

You can find out a lot more about news literacy and how journalists can protect

it, and protect their franchise, at the News Literacy Project.

Here's the link, thenewsliteracyproject.org.

Thank you.

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News Literacy

Gathering and Developing the News

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