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National News Literacy Week arrives Jan. 22, and it has never been more urgently needed. Social media channels are flooded with mis- and disinformation. Justified or not, growing swaths of the electorate harbor sweeping distrust of TV news.
The News Literacy Project, which sponsors the week’s events, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization dedicated to promoting news literacy as a foundational component of a healthy democracy. While much of its work is pivoted to classroom education, it also offers plenty of resources for adults to sharpen their critical media consumption.
In this Talking TV conversation, Peter Adams, the organization’s SVP of research and design, and Hannah Covington, its director of education design, underscore the urgency of news literacy efforts in a critical election year and share ideas that TV newsrooms can incorporate into their daily practice to foster more transparency, amplifying viewer awareness and trust.
Episode transcript below, edited for clarity.
Michael Depp: Next week — from Jan. 22nd to 26, specifically — will be the fifth annual National News Literacy Week. It’s organized by the News Literacy Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education organization devoted to advancing news literacy in America, thus making for a better-informed electorate and a stronger democracy.
I’m Michael Depp, editor of TVNewsCheck, and this is Talking TV, our weekly video podcast. Today, I’m with the News Literacy Project’s Peter Adams, SVP of research and design, and Hannah Covington, director of education design. We’ll talk about what the organization is doing pragmatically to promote