News literacy is the skill of getting an accurate picture of current events from the news while filtering out reports that are biased, false, or misleading.

• A parent sees a viral post claiming a childhood vaccine causes autism, finds that reliable health reporting shows no such link, and keeps their child’s shots on schedule.
• A retiree reads an article promising 20% returns from a new crypto fund, finds that reliable financial news calls it a likely scam, and keeps their savings.
• Before a local election, a voter sets aside a mailer’s claims about a ballot measure, reads what quality outlets say it would do, and votes knowing its real effect.
• A worker about to share a shocking quote from a senator checks it first, finds it was made up, and doesn’t pass it on.
• During a hurricane, a family ignores rumors in a neighborhood chat, follows the weather service and local news, and evacuates on time.
• A commuter drops a feed that left them angry every morning, switches to a short daily read of a few quality sources, and is better informed with less stress.

In each example, a person got an accurate picture of current events and filtered out a report that was biased, false, or misleading.

1. Explain news literacy well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Follow the news and reliably get four results:
   • Coverage: you know the important things happening in the world around you.
   • Accuracy: what you believe from the news is likely to be true, and biased, false, or misleading reports don’t fool you.
   • Composure: you respond to the news with feelings that fit the facts and help you act.
   • Ease: you stay informed with little wasted time or effort.

• Less time, less stress
  • A few good sources and a quick check replace endless scrolling and doom-reading, so you feel calmer and get your time back.
• Better decisions
  • You act on what’s actually true about health, money, safety, and voting, not on a scary headline or a sales pitch dressed up as news.
• Not fooled
  • You catch false and misleading claims, whether they come from bad actors or from well-meaning people who believed them.
• An accurate picture of the world
  • You know what’s really happening and how big it is, not a picture warped by outrage, fear, or one side’s spin.
• Protect the people around you
  • False claims stop with you instead of spreading, and you can help family and friends steer clear of scams and health scares.
• Trusted by others
  • Friends and family learn that what you pass on holds up.

• Time: checking a claim that matters takes a minute or two, and more for big decisions.
• Learning it: the basics take a few hours. Judging sources and evidence well takes months of practice.
• Discomfort: sometimes the evidence goes against what you or your group believe.
• Social friction: questioning a claim a friend shared can feel awkward.
• Money: some of the best sources are behind paywalls.

• When a claim would change what you do: a health choice, an investment, a purchase, a vote.
• When a story is emotionally charged or spreading fast.
• Before you share something.
• It matters less for low-stakes news you won’t act on, where a quick skim is enough.

• Anyone who makes decisions for others: parents, caregivers, voters, managers, teachers.
• Heavy social-media users, since false claims spread fastest in feeds.
• It matters less to people who rarely follow news, though claims still reach them through friends and ads.

Nobody becomes news literate by reading about it. You get good by running the recipe many times and improving each time.

1. Try: Run the recipe on a day’s news, or on one claim that reaches you.
2. Look back: When more facts come in, compare what you believed with what turned out to be true, and find the step that let you down.
3. Improve: Work on that one step, then run the recipe again.

Repeat the loop until you reliably meet the standard.

A TwF (task with feedback) is a task you attempt, paired with feedback that compares your attempt with a standard.

• TwFs are how you run the loop: you check a story or a claim, find your gaps, close them, and repeat until you reliably meet the standard.
• They show whether you’ve learned: you meet the standard when you can pass the Mastery TwFs on your own, months after you stop practicing.
• They keep you from fooling yourself. Reading about news literacy makes it feel easy; a TwF shows whether you can do it.
• They save time. You work on your gaps, not on what you already know.

TwFs come in four levels, from a first try to the full standard: Basics, Apply, Range, and Mastery.

A claim is a statement that asserts that something is or is not the case.

Claims are what the news asks you to believe, so spotting them tells you what to check.

1. Explain what a claim is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Pick out the main claims in a news story, a post, or an ad.

A standard for X is a description of what is most desirable for X.

A standard turns “good” from a feeling into something you can check, so your judgments are clear and fair.

1. Explain what a standard is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Use a standard to judge whether something is good enough, such as tap water, a used car, or a movie.

The News Standard is the standard for news: reporting that is accurate and fair, with any opinion labeled and well grounded.

The News Standard tells you what good reporting looks like, so you can judge any report instead of trusting it by feel.

1. Explain the News Standard well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Judge whether a news report, such as a story on a new law or a health study, meets the News Standard.

A good source of news is one that meets the News Standard most of the time.

Most of what you believe about the world comes from your sources, so good ones give you an accurate picture for little effort.

1. Explain what a good source is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Judge whether a news source you use, or the source behind a post you see, is a good source.

The stakes of a claim are what you could gain or lose depending on whether you get it right.

The stakes tell you which claims deserve your time, so you check what matters and skip what doesn’t.

1. Explain stakes well enough that others can learn to apply them.
2. Judge the stakes of the claims that reach you, such as a health warning or a celebrity rumor, and match your checking to them.

Sources are independent when their reports on a claim don’t trace back to the same origin.

Only independent sources give you a real second opinion; many outlets repeating one report count as one.

1. Explain independent sources well enough that others can learn to apply them.
2. Tell whether the sources reporting a claim, such as a quote or a crime statistic, are independent of each other.

Evidence is information that makes a claim more or less likely to be true.

Evidence is what lets you tell a true claim from one that is only repeated or asserted.

1. Explain evidence well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Find the evidence behind a claim in the news, and judge how strongly it supports the claim.

Confidence is how sure you are that a claim is true.

Matching your confidence to the evidence keeps you from being too sure of a wrong report or too doubtful of a solid one.

1. Explain confidence well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Hold the claims in the news with the confidence their evidence supports, such as the first reports of a disaster.

Opinion, in the news, is content that argues for a view rather than reporting what happened.

Telling opinion from reporting keeps you from taking an argument as a report of the facts.

1. Explain opinion well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Tell opinion from reporting in a news source, even when it isn’t labeled.

Bias is a consistent pattern of departing from a standard in one direction.

Spotting bias shows you which way a source, or you, lean, so you can correct for it.

1. Explain bias well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Spot bias in a news source’s coverage, and in how you yourself react to the news.

The signs of a good source are practices you can see that show it works to meet the News Standard.

The signs let you judge a source quickly from what you can see, before you know its track record.

1. Explain the signs of a good source well enough that others can learn to apply them.
2. Check a news source, such as one you use or one behind a viral post, for the signs of a good source.

Lateral reading is judging a source or claim by leaving it and seeing what other sources say about it.

Lateral reading tells you about an unfamiliar source in minutes, where reading the site itself can mislead you.

1. Explain lateral reading well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Use lateral reading to judge an unfamiliar source quickly, such as a site you’ve never heard of.

A source rating is an independent group’s judgment of how well a news source meets a standard for news.

Source ratings let you draw on others’ careful work to find good sources and screen new ones fast.

1. Explain what a source rating is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Use a source rating, such as Ad Fontes Media’s, to find candidate good sources and to screen a new one.

Spot-checking a source is judging a few of its recent reports against the News Standard.

Spot-checking shows you whether a source meets the News Standard in practice, not just by reputation.

1. Explain spot-checking a source well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Spot-check a news source you use or are thinking of using, and decide whether to keep it.

A source list is the small set of good sources you rely on for most of your news.

A short source list gives you reliable coverage of the news you need with little time or effort.

1. Explain what a source list is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Build a source list that covers the news you need, such as world, local, and topics you care about, and revise it as you learn.

Picking the claims that matter is choosing, from all the claims that reach you, the few whose stakes call for checking.

Picking the few claims that matter lets you check what counts without wearing yourself out.

1. Explain picking the claims that matter well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Pick the claims worth checking from a day’s news and your feeds.

The origin of a claim is the first report or person that made it.

Finding the origin shows what a claim really rests on, and whether it changed as it spread.

1. Explain the origin of a claim well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Trace a claim, such as a viral quote or a shocking statistic, back to its origin.

Cross-checking is comparing what independent good sources report about the same claim.

Cross-checking catches the errors any one source can make, so one bad report doesn’t fool you.

1. Explain cross-checking well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Cross-check a claim that matters, and say where good sources agree, where they differ, and what is still unknown.

A fact-checker is an organization that checks specific public claims against evidence and publishes what it finds.

Fact-checkers have often already checked a viral claim, which saves you time.

1. Explain what a fact-checker is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Use fact-checkers as one of your independent sources when you cross-check a claim, such as a politician’s statement or a viral post.

The strength of evidence is how much a piece of evidence raises or lowers the likelihood that a claim is true.

Judging the strength of evidence keeps you from being swayed by a vivid story or a pile of weak reports.

1. Explain the strength of evidence well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Judge how strong the evidence is for a claim in the news, such as a study, an eyewitness account, or a single anecdote.

A statistic is a number that summarizes data about a group.

Reading statistics well keeps true numbers from giving you a false picture.

1. Explain what a statistic is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Read a statistic in the news, such as a crime rate, by asking what it counts, compared with what, and over what time.

A cause is something that brings about a change in something else.

Telling a cause from a mere link keeps you from acting on studies that don’t show what the headline says.

1. Explain what a cause is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Judge whether a news story’s evidence shows a cause or only a link, such as a study tying coffee to a longer life.

Expert consensus is the shared judgment of most experts in a field on a question in that field.

Expert consensus is often your best guide on questions you can’t check yourself.

1. Explain expert consensus well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Find and use the expert consensus on a claim in the news, such as one about vaccine safety or climate.

A misleading report is one that leaves a false impression, even when each of its statements is true.

Spotting misleading reports protects you from claims that are true in each detail but false overall.

1. Explain what a misleading report is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Spot misleading reports in the news, such as a true statistic with its context left out.

Motivated reasoning is judging a claim by what you want to be true rather than by the evidence.

Catching motivated reasoning keeps your wishes from deciding what you believe.

1. Explain motivated reasoning well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Catch motivated reasoning in yourself when a story pleases or angers you, and judge the claim on its evidence.

A value claim is a claim that something is good or bad, or that something should be done.

Knowing a value claim from a fact claim tells you whether to check it against a standard or against evidence.

1. Explain what a value claim is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Tell value claims from fact claims in a news story or an editorial, so you know whether to judge each against a standard or against evidence.

Judging a value claim is comparing it with the right standard and checking the facts it rests on.

Judging value claims lets you weigh arguments about what should be done instead of picking a side by feel.

1. Explain judging a value claim well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Judge a value claim in the news, such as an argument for a ballot measure or an editorial on a new policy.

A news habit is the routine by which you regularly take in the news.

A good news habit keeps you informed with little effort and keeps the news from taking over your day.

1. Explain what a news habit is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Set up a news habit that fits your life and covers the news you need.

A news feed is a stream of posts and stories that a platform picks for you.

Shaping your feeds keeps a platform’s choices from deciding what you see and how you feel.

1. Explain what a news feed is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Shape or limit your feeds so they serve your news habit instead of taking it over.

Emotional framing is presenting news in a way meant to stir strong feelings.

Seeing emotional framing lets you feel what the facts warrant, not what a headline wants you to feel.

1. Explain emotional framing well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Spot emotional framing in a story or post, and set it aside to see the facts.

Composure is keeping a clear head when events could upset you.

Composure lets you face bad news, act where you can, and keep your peace.

1. Explain composure well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Respond to a distressing story with feelings that fit the facts: act where you can, and accept what you can’t change, as you would bad weather.

A stopping point is the moment your answer about a claim is good enough for its stakes.

Knowing when to stop saves time on small claims and keeps you checking on big ones.

1. Explain a stopping point well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Stop checking a claim once your answer is good enough for its stakes, such as a celebrity rumor or a medical decision.

A developing story is a news story whose facts are still coming in.

Holding early reports loosely keeps you from believing, and sharing, what later turns out wrong.

1. Explain what a developing story is well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Hold early reports on a developing story, such as a shooting or a disaster, loosely, and update as the facts arrive.

Sharing news is passing a report or claim on to other people.

Sharing only what holds up protects the people you care about and keeps their trust in you.

1. Explain sharing news well enough that others can learn to apply it.
2. Share only claims that hold up, say how sure you are, and correct what you shared when it turns out wrong.