NewsLiteracyPlaybook - Flipbook - Page 7
History of NLP
7
Chapter One
History of the News
Literacy Project
In 2006, Alan Miller — a Pulitzer Prize-winning
investigative reporter in the Los Angeles Times’
bureau in Washington, D.C. — was invited to discuss
his work as a journalist, and why it mattered, with
175 sixth-grade students at his daughter’s middle
school. He went into Pyle Middle School in Bethesda,
Maryland, concerned about two things: how his
daughter, Julia, was accessing and evaluating the
tsunami of information of such varying credibility,
transparency and accountability on the internet, and
whether — amid the wrenching transformation in
the news business — there would continue to be an
appreciation of quality journalism.
As he left the building that spring morning, he came
to a realization: If many journalists brought their
expertise and experience to classrooms across
America, it could be extremely meaningful. That
evening, Julia brought home 175 handwritten thankyou notes. Together, as they read each one aloud,
Miller could see what had resonated.
Two weeks later, he returned to Wesleyan University
in Middletown, Connecticut, for his 30th college
reunion. There he participated in a long-scheduled
panel on the future of journalism moderated by
Alberto Ibargüen, a 1966 graduate of Wesleyan
and the president of the John S. and James L.
Knight Foundation, the largest funder of journalism
education in the United States.
After the session, Miller told Ibargüen that he had
the beginnings of an idea that he would like to share.
Ibargüen connected him with Eric Newton, Knight’s
vice president for journalism. Over the next 18
months, they spoke periodically, tugging and pulling
on Miller’s idea until Knight was ready to award him a
founding grant for the News Literacy Project (NLP).
(Coincidentally, and unbeknownst to Miller, in 2006
Knight had given a larger grant to Stony Brook
University in New York for a program that would
teach “news literacy” to college students. Hence,
Newton effectively named a new field of study, and
Knight’s support launched it. Howard Schneider, the
founder of Stony Brook’s Center for News Literacy,
became a founding member of NLP’s board.)
“I thought it was great when you said a newspaper was like
a buffet, with so many articles you can read. I loved your
presentation, and I hope you come again soon.”
— Zena Zangwill, sixth-grade student at
Pyle Middle School, in a thank-you note to Alan Miller