This Week @ McCormick Journalism (Sept. 28 to Oct. 2, 2009)

President Barack Obama proclaimed October National Information Literacy Month. The Journalism Program's work in news literacy dovetails with Obama's message: "Every day, we are inundated with vast amounts of information. A 24-hour news cycle and thousands of global television and radio networks, coupled with an immense array of online resources, have challenged our long-held perceptions of information management. Rather than merely possessing data, we must also learn the skills necessary to acquire, collate, and evaluate information for any situation. This new type of literacy also requires competency with communication technologies, including computers and mobile devices that can help in our day-to-day decisionmaking."

This week's events and news articles about our grantees highlight "the need for all Americans to be adept in the skills necessary to effectively navigate the Information Age."

Journalism Program Events
McCormick co-sponsored the UC Berkeley Media Technology Summit , an invitation-only conference presented by the Graduate School of Journalism and Haas School of Business. Senior media and technology executives seeking to identify future strategies for their businesses met at Google’s headquarters campus in Mountain View, Calif.  The conference blended insights into the technologies, consumer behavior and advertising systems that affect media businesses with the enduring values of journalism.


Grantees in The News
The News Literacy Project, one of our key partners in  news literacy curriculum produced a new video, “Students As Teachers,” showcasing the work of students at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md.  In collaboration with LISC later this month, the News Literacy Project will begin introducing its curriculum into middle schools in Chicago with a MF grant.

Tuning In
McCormick staff attended "Climate Change Policy and Low-Income Communities: Minimizing the Pain, Maximizing the Gain," sponsored by the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. Rebecca Stanfield, senior energy advocate of the Midwest Office of the Natural Resources Defense Council discussed the principles of the cap-and-trade program. The Center for Investigative Reporting, will use a MF grant to focus on complex cap and trade market and its effects of climate change policy.