One of the most significant threats to our democracy is fake news, but this phenomenon is not new. It has been used for centuries to influence people's thinking during elections, business deals, and more.
In the last century, fake news was known as propaganda. Interestingly, starting in the early 1900s, Russia perfected the art of propaganda and used it to enslave a whole nation until Mikhail Gorbachev created Glasnost and opened the door for information flow. But even today, Russia is using propaganda or false news to try and influence elections and sow discord in the US and Europe.
China, under Mao Zedong, used propaganda to close China off to the rest of the world and, like Russia, used it to control the masses and rule with an iron fist.
The modern day version of propaganda is fake news. During the last century, propaganda and fake news were mostly distributed through state-controlled media or TV, radio, and newspapers. But in this century, it is also propagated through social networks and specialized or weaponized websites.
The internet has become problematic in that it delivers a free form medium to share just about anything, regardless of whether it is real or false. Fact-checking sites like Snopes can only address so much; the firehose of information broadcast over the internet makes it difficult for any of these sites to keep up.
Add to that President Trump's campaign to discredit all media except Fox News by calling respectable news organizations like CNN, the New York Times, and other traditional outlets that live and die by journalistic principles, fake news sources. Consequently, discerning fake news from accurate news stories is getting harder and harder to recognize these days.
As a result, some organizations are starting them young.
The News Literacy Project
During a recent trip to Washington D.C., I meet with Chuck Salter, COO of the News Literacy Project, and one of the group's board members: Walt Mossberg, who recently retired after a long and celebrated career as a tech columnist. Mossberg told me he believes firmly in the need to teach news literacy; he spends up to 50 percent of his time on this project on his own dime.
The News Literacy Project started as a classroom project in D.C., New York City, and Chicago but its founders discovered quickly that an "in classroom" approach was not scalable, Salter said. With the help of the Checkology virtual classroom, there are now 13,000 teachers in all 50 states using the program; an adapted version of the course is being used in 93 countries. There are 12 lessons that can be integrated within other courses, like government, civics, history, social studies, English, and journalism.
I was given access to the program to see how it worked and took the first lesson. It was well-designed, interactive, and more than just educational. Students categorize information, make and critique news judgments, detect and dissect viral rumors, interpret and apply the First Amendment, and evaluate bias and learn about confirmation bias. Its ultimate goal is to deliver a curriculum that teaches news literacy, an effort that will likely be helped by a recent $1 million grant from the Facebook Journalism Project.
While philanthropic contributions mostly fund much of the program, the actual content and curriculum are continuously being updated. They now charge a nominal $5 per student for the course and in larger volumes $3 per student to help defray the costs of keeping the material relevant.
One crucial fact about the News Literacy Project is that it takes no political or ideological view at all. It does not tell students which news source to use but rather, teaches them how to evaluate the accuracy of any news content. While the News Literacy Project uses the core content from Checkology, it adds a great deal of value-added services for educators, like professional development sessions with local media outlets.
Starting this fall, teachers will also get resources they can download and use in the classroom. And next year, a journalist directory will give Checkology Premium members access to journalists willing to do in-person or virtual visits to their classroom.
I believe the News Literacy Project is one of the most important educational tools for our age. During the last five years, fake or false news has polluted our social media and people of all ages are having a difficult time determining what fake versus accurate news reporting is.
The courses provided by Checkology and the News Literacy Project should become a fundamental building block of our students' educational process. If we give our youth the proper tools to judge between fact and fiction in our news, we will ensure they become much more informed citizens.