Adviser Update Spring 2016 | Page 6

N E W S M AT TE R S The Importance of News Literacy in a Digital Age T By Richard J. Levine Richard J. Levine is president of the board of directors of the Dow Jones News Fund, Inc. Since joining Dow Jones & Co. in 1966, he has served as vice president for news and staff development, executive editor of Dow Jones Newswires, vice president of information services, editorial director of electronic publishing and Washington correspondent and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He holds a B.S. from Cornell University and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. E-mail: richard. levine@dowjones.com. he digital revolution has had a massive and disruptive impact on journalism, a subject that I have written about repeatedly in Adviser Update over the past 10 years. As Adviser Update itself becomes a digital-only publication with this issue, after almost a half century in print, this column will continue to focus on the intersection of news and technology under a new name, News Matters With the growth of the Internet, readers have increasingly turned to the Web for news. In an electronically connected world, they have instant access to an expanding and dizzying array of online sources. Using smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers, we access news from digital publications, search engines like Google and social networks like Twitter and Facebook as well as directly from the websites and apps of legacy print newspapers and magazines. In a digital environment, news literacy, commonly defined as the ability to “judge the reliability and credibility of news reports and news sources,” has emerged as a critical skill. Two prominent journalists have emerged as major figures in this field, identifying early the issue and then shaping institutions and programs to promote news literacy. The two are Howard Schneider, under whose editorial leadership Newsday won eight Pulitzer Prizes, and Alan Miller, a former investigative reporter with the Los Angeles Times Alan C. Miller who won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. President of Center for News Literacy As the founding dean of the journalism school at Stony Brook University, Schneider recognized that students were having problems navigating the flood of news and information on the web. In 2005, he helped develop the nation’s first course in news literacy and currently serves as executive director of the school’s Center for News Literacy (CNL). Miller discovered the need for news literacy training while