News Know-How

Oak Park teen newshounds showed off their knowledge on December 6 by presenting a video they created and then answering questions from the audience. These participants in the News Know-how program learned to view the news in all of its forms more critically.

Way back in July of this year, the teens trained intensively for two weeks. Then they went forth to critically view and analyze the rhetoric surrounding the 2012 presidential race. Armed with questions about coverage and factual errors, they attempted to contact presidential campaigns and other media outlets.

Check out their video!
 

Final Cut--News Know-How Project 2012 from Nia Smith on Vimeo.

What is News Know-how, and how did Oak Park participate?

News Know-how is a two-year, $750,000 national campaign to engage high school students, journalists, news ethicists, and librarians in real-world news literacy learning. In 2012, nine Oak Park teens took part in the pilot program. A main goal was to give those teens the skills and tools they needed to become watchdogs over the 2012 presidential campaigns.

• Watch the video our teens created documenting what they learned
• Watch this Wednesday Journal video covering our training kick-off 
• Read Patch.com's "Know Your News?"
• Chicago Tribune's "News Consumers of the Future"

What resources can help check facts?

What did students learn?

With Oak Park Public Library as their “newsroom,” teens learned more about how to distinguish fact from opinion. By working with both national and local journalists and our own Oak Park librarians as mentors, teens monitored and analyzed specific news media beats, bloggers and news sources. Teams researched:

• news media coverage of a particular issue in the campaign in a specific community
• reporting on the campaign by influential bloggers
• the work of individual columnists or editorial pages
• news media coverage of specific campaign events
• corrections policies and practices of various news media outlets

When did the 2012 project take place?

It kicked off in July and wrapped up with a presentation in December. All complete News Know-how projects are available online.  

Why did teens take part in this experience?

Students gained valuable real-world experience and skills, as well as:

• connections to real-life issues and journalists
• a digital portfolio on the Oak Park Public Library website and the national News Know-How website
• equipment to support their ongoing involvement in media production
• possibly, eligibility for scholarship money and/or school credit

Who's involved in News Know-how?

In 2012, the Oak Park Public Library and Chicago Public Library as well as several rural and urban libraries in Iowa through the State Library participated in the program. New libraries will continue the program in 2013.

National sponsors are the American Library Association and the Open Society Foundations. The lead training organization is the News Literacy Project Inc. A team at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are assessing the project. Learn more at newsknowhow.org >