Why am I seeing this? How SRL tackled #MediaLitWk

The fifth annual U.S. Media Literacy Week kicked off on October 21, 2019 and we celebrated the entire week with tips, tricks, and tools for students and educators.

SRL partnered with NAMLE for a media literacy-packed event in Detroit, featuring an SRL student panel moderated by Emmy Award-winning reporter Carolyn Clifford and interactive workshops led by educators and students from our Labs at Royal Oak High School, F.V. Pankow Center, Cass Technical High School, and Fraser High School. More than 150 people attended the event and worked with SRL teen reporters to produce social-first interviews about media literacy.

We also produced two explainer videos that dig into important media literacy concepts. In the first video, SRL intern Becky Wandel explores what it means to evaluate the intentions of a source on social media. She created a special stoplight method as a simple way for media consumers to remember to be careful when identifying and consuming different types of information online, including news.

In the second video, Becky spoke with PBS NewsHour science producer, Nsikan Akpan, who recently debunked a widely-reported story about how cell phones are causing young people to grow horns. In the video, Nsikan and Becky explain the nuances of of science reporting and give viewers the tools to dig deeper on their own.