What is news literacy?

The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and participate in news in a variety of forms and means and an understanding of why this ability matters.

(Building on the UNESCO definition of media literacy)

Why news literacy?

Reason #1: UbiquityWe are so immersed in news and media that we don’t even notice “the media” anymore. To be literate, we have to see our environment.

We are

We are swimming in media

Reason #2: PowerThe media is an institution with tremendous power.

To be ignorant of power is to be in danger of being used by it; to understand and to participate in its power it to increase and strengthen your own power.

The Media

Political power

Economic power

Cultural power

These six corporations dominate media globally. Together, they are worth more than $275 billion.The Big Six

Reason #3: ChangeYet, even as corporations dominate,

digital technologies are facilitating a shift in communication power from hierarchical, concentrated mass media organizations to distributed, horizontal, mobile, accessible, participatory socially driven networked communication.

“News media” is a subset of “the media”

Mainstream news media influence, but no longer control, the public agenda, the means of production or the distribution of news and information.

Journalism is the gathering, organizing, editing, production and distribution of news for public purposes.

Reason #4: TruthThis change in communication

structure doesn’t lessen the need for journalism, but increases it.

Journalism is a check on governmental excess, corporate corruption and individual injustice.

It is a witness to our collective stories, a public conversation about who we are.

Reason #5: OverloadWith so many sources of information

coming at us 24/7, unfiltered, direct, incessant, we must now be our own editors and filters. WE decide what to pay attention to, what to believe, what to care about.

But what we pay attention to, MATTERS. We need truthful information about the world to make choices that benefit ourselves and don’t harm others.

How Americans see the world

Reason #6

This is the time to reinvent journalism, make a difference, be creative, join a movement, build new tools, design, photograph, shoot, write, draw, mashup, mixup, invent, discover, create.

Being news literate is the first step in this process.

Reason #7: To avoid the zombies.