Educators across the globe recognize media literacy as an essential skill for citizens of all ages. With its ratings and detailed Nutrition Label reviews, NewsGuard offers a unique media literacy teaching tool that guides citizens through the overwhelming landscape of online news and information. That’s why NewsGuard has developed a pro-bono news literacy program, through which it has partnered with libraries, schools, nonprofits, and researchers across the globe to help people answer the question: Who is feeding you the news?
NewsGuard surveyed 46 members of library staff at the Los Angeles Public Library and Hawaii State Public Libraries in Spring 2019, a few months after the libraries had deployed the browser extension, to hear about staff and patron experiences.
91% strongly agreed or agreed that NewsGuard helps them personally better understand news and information websites.
89% strongly agreed or agreed that NewsGuard helps their patrons or students better understand news and information websites.
80% said they would like social media and search engines to include NewsGuard ratings and write-ups in their news feeds and search results.
“NewsGuard is far and away the best resource we have found that lets people evaluate just what the internet is bringing to their screens. That NewsGuard uses upfront criteria and highly qualified professionals in evaluating websites and makes these recommendations without hindering access in any way is just a real benefit to anyone using the internet today.”
Sean Farrell, Director of The Library of
Hattiesburg Petal & Forrest County (Mississippi, U.S.)
“We are delighted to recommend the NewsGuard initiative to users of libraries across the UK. The unique alerts provided by NewsGuard to the provenance of news websites means that all computer users can be fully informed about the accuracy and source of the information they are reading, enabling them to take their own view about what they are reading.”
Stella Thebridge, chair of the Association of Senior Children’s and Education Librarians (U.K.)
“Adding this service on computers used by our library patrons continues the long tradition of librarians arming readers with more information about what they are reading.”
Stacey Aldrich, Hawaii State Librarian (U.S.)
NewsGuard is free for Turnitin subscriber schools and universities. To learn more and receive free NewsGuard access codes, submit the form on this page.
Universities may license NewsGuard for their students at a heavily discounted rate (see NewsGuard University Rate Card).
Consult the Resources section below for suggested exercises and lesson plans for using NewsGuard in the classroom.
The CSMR’s “Iffy Quotient” tool tracks the proportion of unreliable websites shared on Facebook and Twitter. The team uses NewsGuard’s ratings as a benchmark for distinguishing between reliable and unreliable sites. Read more about this use case here.
A project led by Brendan Nyhan from Dartmouth College, Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia from the University of South Florida, and Filippo Menczer and Alessandro Flammini from Indiana University uses the Index to study how to improve the diversity of information circulating on social media. Read more about this use case here.
NewsGuard’s Board of News Literacy Advisors consists of a diverse group of representatives from libraries, schools, and other educational organizations with an expertise and interest in media literacy who help shape and expand NewsGuard’s educational efforts.
NewsGuard is proud to partner with these organizations promoting media literacy:
Click the links below to download NewsGuard’s free resources for teachers, librarians, and parents hoping to use NewsGuard as a media literacy teaching tool:
