Join us at the Main Library Thursday, December 6, at 7:00 pm to hear a formal presentation on what our local teens learned as part of a national pilot program designed to engage students, journalists, news ethicists, and librarians in news literacy education.

News Know-how began four months ago, as four distinct groups of high school students committed to becoming smarter news consumers and “media watchdogs” of upcoming political campaign coverage. Locally, with Oak Park Public Library as their “newsroom,” teens worked with local librarians and journalism mentors from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post to analyze news coverage in all of its formats, learning to distinguish facts from opinions, and practic information literacy principles for enhanced critical thinking.

“Oak Park Public Library was elated to be a local sponsor of ‘News Know-how.’ We certainly understand the challenges of a rapidly changing media environment and welcome the opportunity to promote Oak Park as a civically-engaged community,” explains Deirdre Brennan, Executive Director of Oak Park Public Library. “Helping people get the facts is our business. Every day we help people evaluate online sources for credibility.”

National sponsors are the American Library Association and the Open Society Foundations. The lead training organization is the News Literacy Project Inc. The program will be assessed by a team at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
 
The American Library Association (ALA) unveiled the “News Know-how” campaign in February 2012. The two-year, $750,000 national project seeks to create partnerships and collaborations for a nonpartisan, critical analysis of news and information. Libraries that kicked off the project were Oak Park Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, and several Iowa rural and urban libraries working with the State Library. “News Know-how” is supported by the Open Society Foundations. Learn more about News Know-how [1].

More information, events, and resources for teens [2].

Our events and classes are photographed or videotaped for promotional purposes. Please let us know if you prefer not to be photographed or videotaped. Your name will not be used without your written consent.

More library events, by location and topic, in our events calendar [3].