Teaching the next generation of news consumers how to discern quality news and information from the dreck and, more importantly, why the distinction matters, is something that anyone who is serious about sustaining good journalism should support. That is precisely what the nascent news literacy movement, born in Howie Schneider’s Stony Brook lab, aims to do, and the effort takes another giant step forward today with the launch of The News Literacy Project, Alan Miller’s national project that will bring retired journalists into the classroom to

give middle and high school students the tools to be smarter and more frequent consumers and creators of credible information across all media and platforms. Students will be taught how to distinguish verified information from raw messages, spin, gossip and opinion and encouraged to seek information that will make them well-informed citizens and voters.