‘Media literacy’ advocates push to create savvier consumers of news and information The campaign was inspired by a conversation with Michael Wolff, author of ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House’.
As Donald Trump prepares for a second term as president, media literacy advocates are pushing for more people to read and to consume news that’s less partisan and more balanced.
The campaign, called “A Discerning Citizen,” is inspired by a conversation the New Yorker writer Michael Wolff had with Trump back in September. According to the New York Times, Wolff was at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago Club between Sept. 26 and 28 for a dinner with his friends and associates.
ADVERTISEMENT
“What I learned over dinner is that, contrary to what the pundits in the White House believe, Trump is a very smart man. He read a lot, he knew a lot more about foreign policy than people realize,” Wolff told the Times.
But the dialogue is not just about what Trump has in his library. It’s about how media literacy and media activism can help people form an informed opinion.
“If we’re not interested in informing the public of the complexities of the world around us, we’re wasting our time,” said Susan Crawford, the executive director of the nonprofit The News Literacy Project. “We need to engage a much larger constituency of people that are interested in our communities and our world.”
The News Literacy Project works with local newsrooms around the country to teach students how to build and maintain a media literacy curriculum and to help news makers use that knowledge to build a more informed public. It’s an effort that has been making waves after the 2016 election season.
“Just as importantly, we need to find ways of engaging people in a way that is more informed,” Crawford said. “We need to be finding ways to get people curious about what might be