- Welcome to Ohio Learns 360.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Anna Huntsman.

And today we're learning about news literacy.

In today's news climate, it can be difficult to sort through the seemingly constant information as well as misinformation.

Today's young learners have the world at their fingertips through technology and social media, but it's crucial to equip them with the tools to navigate news responsibly.

In this session, we'll delve into the importance of cultivating critical thinking skills in the digital age.

You'll learn strategies to help children distinguish between credible news sources and mi.. From the basics of fact-checking to developing a healthy skepticism through engaging and even fun activities.

Joining me to provide these insights and strategies to navigate the complex landscape of news consumption is Pamela Brunskill.

She's the Senior manager of Education Design at the News Literacy Project.

Welcome, Pam.

- Thanks so much for having me, Anna.

- Pam, it can be difficult, even for adults nowadays to navigate discerning misinformation, whether on the internet or social media.

So where do you even begin with helping children navigate this?

- Yeah, that's a really good question because we are in the most complex information environment in history, and as you said, it is difficult for adults and it's also difficult for kids, even though they're digital natives, we have research to show that they still need instruction on how to navigate, right?

So at the News Literacy Project, we have resources all the way from elementary to college and for the general public.

And we recommend starting, you know, as soon as kids wanna start talking about what's going on in the world.

So in pre-K right?

That's when they start talking about what is happening in their community.

And news is meant to inform.

So we start having conversations as early as three years old.

When we talk about classroom environments, what is fair, that gets into one of the first standards of quality journalism is being fair.

And that, of course, is gonna look different when kids get into fourth grade and seventh grade and in high school.

So that by the time they graduate, they'll have a solid understanding of what ethical reporting would look like in a.. to an appreciation for a free press, right?

The scaffolds will build as students age, as kids age.

- Yeah, well, that's an interesting point too, as far as there's probably different strategies for every age group.

So could you break that down a little bit more?

- Sure.

So when we're looking at preschool, kindergarten, first grade, it's gonna be age appropriate, right?

So it's gonna be a lot of times what is happening with your friends and rumors.

Rumors start happening and kids recognize it right away.

Well, that's not true.

That didn't happen.

And we talk about when we're talking with our kids and when we're talking with our friends, why a rumor might hurt somebody or why it's not helpful, right?

And then by the time we get into middle school, we can talk about different types of information so that we can differentiate between what is news, what is good quality information versus opinion versus propaganda, right?

Versus raw information and you know, entertainment, different types of information.

And then by the time we get to high school, we can talk about how rumors can fuel misinformation and can even lead into conspiratorial thinking.

And we have, at NLP, we have something called Checkology, which is our web-based platform for learning about different aspects of news literacy.

And it's meant for grade six through 12, but we have a lot of college students who use our Checkology platform as well, and some upper elementary.

And we delve into all of these topics.

- Hmm, are there any red flags or pitfalls that parents should be aware of when guiding kids, no matter what age through news con.. - Oh, definitely.

So let's start with what to look for, right?

So we have five core competencies.

We believe students or people should hold to be considered news literate.

I'll go into three of them right now because that's what we look for.

The first one I already started talking about, which is just being able to discern the difference between news and other types of information, right?

Are you looking at news?

So that's the first step, right?

Is just making sure what you're looking at actually is news versus opinion or raw information.

And then standard three would be recognizing the standards of quality journalism.

So what do you look for?

Is there verification?

Is there a fairness, right?

If, if we're talking about an article or broadcast that is talking about a snowstorm, well, did they include the meteorologist?

Did they include context for why the storm is important and relevant to our community?

Another one is, do they use fair and dispassionate language?

Right?

It's not intended to inflame your e.. unless it is really truly something horrid, right?

Like, and even then it's supposed to be displayed in a dispassionate manner.

And then standard four would be the skills to recognize misinformation, right?

Are they, which is where you asked about the red flags.

Is somebody using loaded language meant to make you feel something?

Is it anger, hope, amazement?

If so, that doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong, but it should raise a flag saying, okay, I need to take a step back and evaluate, am I reacting because I am feeling emotional?

Or is this actually credible information?

So if you are feeling something, you wanna analyze the source, you wanna look at what is the evidence and what do other people say about that?

If there's lack of context, or lack of balance, that's another red flag.

- [Anna] What about fact checking?

What are some strategies or resources you recommend for that?

- Yeah, fact checking is great.

We have a resource called "Rumor guard" for the general public where every week we go through and analyze some of the top rumors that have gone viral.

And we go through with falsifiability, we look through different factors in analyzing why did it go viral.

So there are some, I sign up for Rumor Guard, it's fantastic, and you can get text alerts, right?

Or you can just go to our website rumorguard.org or find it through newslit.org, and it will teach you how to analyze common tropes of misinformation and common tactics for rumors, right?

So one of the most common is gonna be when you see a celebrity or a political figure and they have a T-shirt on and there's a slogan or saying on that T-shirt, and it's something, again, that loaded language is gonna make you feel something and feel inflamed where somebody has just gone through and added or changed the text and the statement on T-shirt, it's a really common tactic.

And same thing with billboards, right?

Anything that you can change the words, people are gonna do that too.

And I was just reading an article today where a political candidate had changed the wording on is, is it, you know, the words at the bottom of the screen of his political opponent was speaking in a different language and they just changed what the political opponent was saying and used that as an attack ad, right?

So it's an approach people use for rumors And to fact check, you can check and then... Oh, in order to fact check it, right?

You can use a reverse image search, you can go to other websites to see, you know, you type in... You wouldn't go to that same website because they're gonna just tell you what they wanna hear, but you go to other websites did so-and-so say this and see what other credible sites and other credible fact-checking sites have said about it.

- That has me thinking about artificial intelligence, which has emerged in recent years.

And I know that there are some concerns about what's being manipulated out there and how it really, it looks real, you know?

So in that regard, do you have any specific strategies there with helping children navigate that?

- Oh yeah, AI is transforming everything.

And it's moving so fast.

So even as we are like right now, you can often tell by looking at an image if it's too shiny or there's six fingers, you know, right now you can use those tips to analyze photos, but they are... And videos, but they are absolutely improving very, very quickly.

I did read that some of the AI people or organizations are going to put in a code so that you can do a type of reverse image and it will show that it's AI, but that is not necessarily up and running yet.

And we don't know how easily that will, will translate into people checking that.

I think the best way to deal with AI generated images and videos is really to generate that healthy skepticism.

So when you're looking at an image again, does it generate some sort of feeling?

And if so, take a step back.

Is that something that I would actually see?

You asked a little bit about fact checking, and this goes along with AI and fact checking and just red flags.

So I was on online the other day and a friend had posted a really, really sweet image of a tiny baby owl with all different colors on the hand.

and I was like, Hmm, that's really sweet and cute, but it's awe inspiring, right?

And made that my friend post it.

And I said, that doesn't look right.

And so when you're generating that healthy skepticism, before I shared it, before I was like, "Ooh, this is wonderful."

I took a second to do a reverse image.

And if you don't know how to do that, we have videos on our site, or you can just look it up.

And I think Google now has a right click.

If you're on the computer, you can just right click and it'll .. do a reverse image search.

And I found similar images, but not that exact one.

So I couldn't actually find the source of that image to see if it was real or not.

But it was too perfect.

So I did some more checking.

It looks like AI and I went to the group that posted it, and there was nothing about that group on it.

I couldn't find anything outside of that social media site telling me who that group was.

And I looked at what other things that group had posted and it was all pretty random perfect posts and it gave off a lot of red flags.

So I wrote back to my friends saying, "This looks awesome, but just in FYI, it looks like AI and I did a little investigation on the source and it's not giving me a lot of information."

I'm not saying this is what happens or I'm not saying this is what is happening with this post, but some groups will create a site, post some beautiful videos, and media get a whole bunch of people to like it, get a whole bunch of people to follow.

And then they will either change their content to not so innocuous images, or they will sell the information.

And that's a lot of times how our extremist groups can gain a large following.

- Yeah, I have that healthy skepticism too as a journalist.

And so often I find myself, like you said, doing little investigations, but that might feel a little bit intimidating for parents or anyone who's trying to navigate that.

It seems like there are so many steps to try to identify is this true?

Is this not true?

So do you have any advice or does it really not take that long?

- Yeah, you know, it depends on the person.

If you think it's gonna be a lot to overcome, because for some people it is.

And for a while I would say just start, right?

Just if it seems overwhelming to you, the first step would be to develop that skepticism.

And if you are not sure that it's real, don't share it, right?

That's your civic responsibility.

But as you get more confidence in looking at images and dealing with AI, you can start to push back and question, right?

And then shameless plug, come to News Literacy Project webinars, right?

And learn about what it means to be news literate and what is involved in incredible information.

- What is the importance of trying to promote news literacy, media literacy in children, even from a young age?

- Well that's literacy in my opinion.

I came from the schools and I was a teacher, right?

So I'm gonna promote literacy in all aspects.

And you don't just start teaching kids how to read in sixth grade because that's when they're gonna get into the good novels.

I taught fourth grade too.

There were good novels there too.

But I just mean it starts earlier.

It starts from the first time they make scribbles and have the fine motor skills that all relates to building on their ability to compose in middle and high school.

It all builds to their ability to understand the difficult complex novels in high school.

So if we don't start early in developing these concepts of what is news and the importance of news, then we run a real risk by the time our kids grow up and have to navigate this environment and participate in this environment.

- Well, how about some fun strategies?

Are there any games or interactive activities that parents can use to make learning about news literacy more engaging for their kids?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So the Checkology platform I referenced earlier, we have a game-like simulation called "Practicing Quality Journalism," where students go along with Enrique Acevedo and be reporters at the scene of where a truck spilled.

It's a simulation.

And they go through with the reporter's notebook and learn about the sans equality journalism as they prepare their report.

That's just at NLP.

And then some other games deal with inoculation called "Cranky Uncle."

And the "Bad News Game" and inoculation is exactly what you would expect it to be.

It's exposing kids or anyone actually to some of the strategies bad actors will use to get people to leave or fall for misinformation.

Sometimes it's intentional of course, and sometimes it's not, but it could also be through logica..

So "Cranky Uncle" looks at logical fallacies And "The Bad News" game is from Sandra Vander Linden.

It tries to recognize tactics about manipulating digital news and social media within, again, a simulation tackling fake news that has infected public debate.

Minecraft also came out with a game, and I know there are some others and there are some great books parents can read with their kids about news literacy and misinformation.

- Those sound really fun.

I'm definitely gonna have to check those out too.

Now, Pam, this might sound like a basic question, but in your eyes, what do you recommend to parents for really great fact-based ethical journalism versus maybe can you give us some examples of opinion?

- Okay, so we get this question a lot and at News Literacy Project, we don't tell people these are credible sources and these are not because we want you to develop those skills and understandings on your own.

So what we tell people is to recognize what to look for, right?

So if you're looking for a credible piece of information of news, you're gonna wanna look for, you know, first of all, is there a byline and is that person really who they say they are?

And then are they using that dispassionate language?

Are they being fair to the subjects in the report?

Are they reporting the facts?

Are they backing up the facts with, you know, with details and explanations and are they showing, are they being transparent?

Are they showing where they found their information?

Right?

So a standards based news organization is going to hyperlink, you know, and show how they got that information or that... And yeah, how that piece of information fits into the story.

And you also wanna click on those links sometimes because a lot of times not so ethical organizations will put links in 'cause they know that's a good practice, but then the links don't actually show what they say they do.

Another thing is, headlines should match what is said in the body of an article or a broadcast.

And then when we're talking about news versus opinion.

So recognize the difference and opinion is gonna be be identified by word like perspective or editorial or opinion, and they should be labeled in a credible news organization.

- Those are great recommendations, particularly for parents who might be navigating this.

And of course we talked about how parents might assist children with navigating that, but there will be times where children are interacting with media on their own, you know, maybe at school or maybe they're scrolling on their phone looking at TikTok.

So what are some critical questions that parents should encourage their children to ask themselves when they're interacting with media?

- Yeah, I love this question and especially that you just mentioned TikTok, because I was just having this conversation with my daughter the other day asking her to show me her TikTok feed and I wanted to see what was on it 'cause I'm snoopy and she was showing me a video that she had posted and showing me her friends, is that for you feed?

And then I was asking, 'cause I don't know all of her friends.

I said, who's that?

And she would tell me, and then the next video came up and I didn't recognize her at all and I asked her, who's that?

And she goes, oh mom, that's an ad.

She goes, didn't you see it has ad you know, hashtag It's like, yeah.

So I have done well.

So the first question is always gonna be what am I looking at, right?

That's that first disposition where we are identifying is it news, is it something else?

So when kids are going online, that first question they have to ask themselves is, what am I looking at?

Is this news?

Is this opinion?

Is it something totally different?

Is it intended to entertain me?

Is is it just plain entertainment?

Because each of these different types of information have a purpose, but if we're gonna be saying something is news, we better make sure it actually is.

That's that first question.

So what am I looking at?

And then if it is news, is it credible?

How do I know?

And how do I know is by looking at the evidence and looking at what other people say about that source and that evidence.

- What about navigating tough topics or even scary topics like war, natural disasters, crime?

I mean, obviously we are inundated with stories about that in our world today.

How can parents and kids navigate that?

- Yeah, that's a hard one, but it's gonna be to slow down just like with everything you wanna slow down and when we're talking about kids, that's a big span, right?

Just so I wanna start by saying you do it in age appropriate ways.

First of all, you're always gonna be honest with your kids, but you're gonna say something different to a 3-year-old than you are to a 15-year-old.

So scary things like, like war, right?

I'm not sure you would necessarily bring up to a toddler unless it directly impacted them.

But to a high schooler who is aware of life beyond, you know, hopefully they're aware that there's life beyond their school community.

You could bring up, you know, some the Israel Hamas war, right?

It's provoking a lot of emotion in our community, in our friends and our families.

So we might bring it up as to the... We start with the question, "What do you know, what have you heard?"

And that's a good starting question with any group, actually with any age group.

And you go from there and you wanna start with facts and evidence and you wanna go as far as that age child wants to know if that makes sense, right?

Because if you throw too much at a 10-year-old, you can scare them and scar them and lead to nightmares.

But if they are genuinely curious, you follow their lead as to how far and what the direction is.

Again, though, you are gonna wanna show them how to find good information.

And here's the thing, particularly with today's kids is they're online and they're gonna have a social media feed, right?

And we don't wanna let social media algorithms feed the news and we don't want kids to doom scroll.

So I would say we wanna teach them to cultivate quality news sources in that social media feed, right?

Because otherwise it can quickly spiral into some of those really... Well, first of all, some of them not accurate and also doomsday type information.

- Okay, so let's say you're navigating school, you're navigating social media and the internet and you're applying some of these techniques that we've talked about today and your child graduates high school and they're considered very news literate.

What does that actually look like?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

What it means is that students can identify when the information they're looking at is credible and what they should do with that information, and they can recognize what's going on in the larger information environment.

We have five core competencies.

We identify at the News Literacy Project.

We say a child, or any individual, needs to have in order to be considered news literate.

I mentioned three of them before, so I'll go through them.

The first one is gonna be that zoning information, determining what information you're looking at, is it news or something else.

The second is valuing the importance of a free press and the important of the first amendment in American democracy, right?

Because without that we are losing that aspect of watchdog rule of the news and the information.

The third one I mentioned already is that ability to understand what the standards of quality journalism are and then to look for those in the information and use it.

They are receiving and going to find.

The fourth one I also mentioned would be the skills of and habits of mind of recognizing verification skills like the ability to detect misinformation and faulty information, or sorry, faulty evidence.

And the fifth one is, we hinted at before, which would be that civic responsibility.

So students express a sense of responsibility for the information they share and feel more empowered to be civically engaged.

So they're gonna be using the knowledge, skills and dispositions that they gather throughout their years to engage and participate in our democracy in a news literate way.

- Are there any other strategies or techniques or even concepts about raising a new generation of news literate children that you wanted to mention?

- Yeah, I think we just need to dive in.

It might seem over overwhelming at first, but you tackle each aspect of news literacy as it comes and be proactive in seeking out opportunities to engage with other people in evaluating information.

If we're talking about news literacy, identifying credible sources, right?

You're gonna look for those standards, we're gonna see how their news coverage looks and across the board not just with one article, and we're gonna care.

We're gonna care about news literacy.

- Looking ahead, are there any other major topics on the horizon or programs on the horizon that you and others who work in this field are really focusing on?

You know, what can parents expect this year?

- Yeah, well, AI as you know, is gonna play a large role in what is shaping our future with news literacy.

Also, trust is a huge one there.

You know, trusting in news is a big issue.

Funding, right?

Newsrooms are shrinking.

So we have a large road ahead, a large, I don't wanna call it a mountain, but we have a job to do and we all have a role to play in making sure we're navigating our news environment.

- Is there anything else I didn't ask about that you wanted to mention?

- I came to NLP back in 2021 because I didn't feel like I knew enough for people feeling intimidated or don't feel like they know enough.

That was me when I started and I left the classroom in .. because I didn't feel like I knew enough to navigate news literacy and our news environment okay.

And I immersed myself in this world and within a few months, things started to take shape and it just takes a little bit of training and time to invest in learning about what should I look for?

What are the standards of quality?

And you can pretty quickly tell some of.. credible versus not credible sources.

And same thing with misinformation, same thing with your news feeds.

And right now, I'm at the stage of being horrified by some of my very, very smart friends who share things that are not accurate or they make a claim, but provide no evidence.

So it might be true, but you just don't know.

And these are dispositions that you develop when you start to learn about news literacy.

And now I feel very good about navigating this environment even though it is still tricky and there are times when I'm not sure what is accurate.

- Well, thanks so much.

Pamela Brunskill, Senior Manager of Education Design at the News Literacy Project.

For Ideastream Public Media, I'm A..

Thanks so much for joining me for this Ohio Learns 360 webinar, all about news literacy.

And be sure to check back for other upcoming webinars for your children in the future.