Summary

This week is the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol. In the months since the riot, a number of far-right extremist groups have become household names, and some of their core beliefs — and even their tactics — have moved from the fringe to the mainstream.

Five Facts

Directions: Choose one or more of the stories to record the Five Facts questions as well as the focus and media literacy questions below. Watch the first 5m:52 of the video for the main summary. If time allows, watch the interview that follows.

• Who are some of the individuals or groups of people mentioned in the news summary?


• What stories are covered?


• Where do some of the stories take place?


• When did those stories occur?


• Why did the event(s) take place?

*Bonus: How do you think the NewsHour's producers decided which stories made it into the news summary?

Focus Questions

• How does radicalization and extremism test our democracy?


• What do you think can be done about the growing problem of far-right extremism?

Media literacy : There are multiple reasons cited for the events that led up to Jan. 6. Why is it important for journalists to include all of these reasons in their reporting and not focus on just one? Class activity: If time allows, watch the interview with Kathleen Belew, professor of history at the University of Chicago and the author of "Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America," and Michael Jensen, a senior researcher at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland. (5m:52 to the end of the video) If short on time, read the excerpt below by Jensen:

But where we haven't done as good a job is tackling the disinformation that made its way into the mainstream in 2020. It's still very much front and center in our national political discourse. An overwhelming majority of Republican voters in particular believe that the 2020 election was rampant with fraud.

We see anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, QAnon movement, et cetera, are still very much in the mainstream political discourse. And we haven't had a unified voice that's really come out to counter that disinformation. And I think really importantly is, we haven't had a collective voice from both sides of the aisle of powerful political leaders condemning that disinformation and what happened on January 6.

And so, unfortunately, if anything, we have moved in the opposite direction because, on top of all that disinformation, we now have this revisionist history around January 6, certain political commentators promoting the idea that it was a peaceful protest, and that the truly aggressive people that day were the police, and that the demonstrators were just protecting themselves and they're true patriots.

And so now we have this disinformation that's making its way into the mainstream, on top of all the other disinformation that was there prior to January 6.

Write a one-paragraph critically reflective response to the following question: Why are individuals susceptible to disinformation (news that purposely misleads the reader) and what do you think can be done about it? Alternatively, you may use the focus questions above: How does radicalization and extremism test our democracy? What do you think can be done about the growing problem of far-right extremism? Share your thoughts with NewsHour Classroom's Student Voice blog . Email your response to education@newshour.org and include your name (first name or initials are fine), grade and your city/state. Teachers, let us know if you have any questions.