Tom
Gayda
2018 Teacher of the Year
By Heather Taylor
“My dad doesn’t think I should go into
the fake news business.”
I
t was an upsetting statement for Tom Gayda, a
teacher and media adviser at North Central High
School in Indianapolis, to hear from a student
in his class. But was a serious wakeup call to a
growing problem.
Gayda is ready to take on the fake news machine and
its erosion of trust in media. He wants to help people
become smarter news consumers and smarter social
media users.
“We need to educate our students that insults of
fake news are not funny. This not only undermines
what we do for a living, it undermines the entire First
Amendment,” Gayda said.
He plans on bringing more attention to the problems
of fake news and identify solutions as the 2018
National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year.
Gayda was recently given this honor by the Columbia
Scholastic Press Association, a national award
co-sponsored by the Dow Jones News Fund with