Here is more information about news literacy, the Journalism Program's impact and evaluation strategy, as well as our current research projects. We're interested in learning more about the following:
- What are the strengths of each setting for delivering news literacy training?
- What are the challenges and opportunities for teaching news literacy to various age groups?
- What are the short-term and long-term benefits of news literacy training?
Our grantees are working to develop assessment tools that measure the impact of news literacy on civic engagement and critical thinking skills.
Impact & Evaluation
To date, our progress indicators (benchmarks for success) in news literacy have focused on:
- Number of schools implementing news literacy
- Number of students reached by news literacy training
- Number of youth journalism programs infusing news literacy into curriculum
- Number of teachers trained in news literacy
- The short-term and long-term benefits of learning news literacy critical thinking skills
In the longer term (2015), we aim to achieve the following targets:
- CPS adopts a news literacy curriculum
- Expand news literacy classes at local colleges and universities
- Extend reach of news literacy programs throughout Chicago
Current Research Projects
To help us reach long-term targets, McCormick is partnering on several projects to evaluate the impact of news literacy training on young people. The effort includes developing a set of reliable tools for measuring news literacy impact that is shared with other funders, government leaders, school officials, teachers and parents. The evaluation initiatives in progress are summarized below.
Educational Development Center is acting as the host organization for Why News Matters grantees. It is providing field-building activities and technical assistance in the area of evaluation, but also developing a WNM logic model in partnership with McCormick grantees.
What we will learn: We are working with each grantee to help maximize the impact of their work, but also exploring the challenges and benefits of work in multiple venues with middle schoolers, high schoolers, college students and adults of all ages.
Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society is carrying out a multi-faceted project with McCormick funding to identify the news literacy approaches with the most impact. Its Youth and Media Lab is providing research briefs to the Chicago network of grantees, providing critical assistance in innovative curriculum development and conducting focus groups with Chicago-area McCormick grantees.
What we will learn: Knowing how youth use the internet should feed news literacy programs and help them better engage their intended audience. Also, we are exploring the best ways to establish a real-time connection between academic research and WNM practitioners in Chicago.
McCormick Foundation's 2013 News Literacy Grantees
Previous News Literacy Conferences
Setting Learning Goals for News Literacy. Prof. Geanne Rosenberg of Baruch College directed the November 2010 Inaugural High School News Literacy Summit for high school students, educators and observers from journalism and youth media institutions. Baruch also hosted a dinner/brainstorming session for news/media/digital/information literacy funders, leaders and educators.
Stony Brook University News Literacy Conference. Visit the News Literacy Conference web site chronicling the first national conference on News Literacy. If you didn’t participate in the 2011 conference, this is an opportunity to “attend” the conference yourself. Stony Brook has arranged several layers of navigation so you can spend just a few minutes or a few hours exploring the conference. You can learn what News Literacy is; meet the conference attendees, including university presidents and top news media leaders, and watch a presentation on how a course in News Literacy already is being taught to thousands of undergraduates at Stony Brook University. You can experience the conference “breakout” sessions for yourself and hear about a “Big Idea.”