Society supports fake news initiatives for local classrooms
The Society of Editors is supporting an initiative by the National Literacy Trust to help children make more sense of the modern news landscape.
The Society attended the launch of a report compiled by the Commission on Fake News and the Teaching of Critical Literacy in Schools which revealed that only two per cent of children and young people in the UK have the critical literacy skills they need to tell if a news story is real or fake.
“It is not surprising that school-aged children and also young people find it difficult to determine fact from fiction in today’s blizzard of news sources when so many adults face the same difficulties,” commented the Society’s executive director Ian Murray.
“What this means is that we need to ensure responsible media organisations play their part in helping teachers and parents to have the tools to enable youngsters to start to make decisions about what to believe and what to ignore at a much younger age.”
- Bill Heaney, of The Dumbarton Democrat, and Donald Fullarton, formerly of the Helensburgh Advertiser and Dumbarton Reporter, are emeritus editors of the Society of Editors.