We went on a mini-tour to engage the community on media literacy and the future of journalism. Here’s what we learned.
Our recent mini-tour through a few of the Golden State’s northern cities helped us share critical knowledge on media literacy while listening to issues and solutions from students, educators and local journalists.
Michael Lozano, who leads CalMatters Youth Journalism Initiative, was my road-trip partner for our three-city tour across Larkspur, Fremont and Stockton. He has been networking with student newsrooms up and down the state to understand how we can support their work.
As the first community engagement manager at CalMatters, I’ve been expanding our reach across communities we have yet to serve through initiatives such as CalMatters for Learning, and this mini-tour was an excellent opportunity to do just that.
Selecting the communities
We chose our destinations based on three criteria:
- the demographics of the communities
- the information needs of the communities
- our connections with local groups
The third element was vital. Having someone in the community to introduce you to their peers is essential, not only to build trust but also because (to quote our Director of Engagement and Membership Sonya Quick) “the last thing you want is to parachute into a community.”
Our first stop was in Marin County, with its significant income disparities and 25% of Latinx children living below the federal poverty level. Next, we visited Alameda County, home to a fast-growing population of immigrants and refugees. We closed the tour in Stockton, which in 2020 was named America’s most racially diverse city.
Different approaches
We decided on two types of community gatherings:
- A media literacy workshop for teens at a library and high schools
- Strategy sessions with educators, local news outlets and student journalists
Teachers allowed us to host workshops during school hours, and at the Fremont Main Library, librarians invited us to present during their regular Teen Tuesdays program.
We designed the workshop to be hands-on, activity-based and flexible — at Redwood High School, we had 30 minutes to present during their lunch break, while in Fremont, we had two full hours.
We structured the workshop with games, videos and interactive polls using Mentimeter. Ice-breakers invited youth to share things they recently heard, including celebrity gossip, and discuss how reliable the source might be. It naturally led us to review the C.R.A.P test (Currency, Reliability, Accuracy and Purpose).
We then covered the importance of media literacy and finished up with a hot debate about proposals to ban TikTok.
The strategy sessions were hosted after class at high schools and organized with the help of school staff. We started with a question: Imagine all the student journalists on your campus, in your county, and in California right now — what do we need to do to double their number?
Key takeaways
- Young news consumers on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube stress the need for early news literacy education. They highlight the effectiveness of video content, games, and zines in engaging attention spans.
- Educators and news stakeholders face challenges of limited time, high turnover, and funding constraints in youth journalism programs. Staff transitions, lack of district support, and short-term student participation impact programs’ efficacy.
- Engaging with motivated community members during our mini-tour reveals the immeasurable value of connecting with individuals who want to make a difference in their communities. And that’s exactly the motivation of our work in our nonprofit newsroom: to connect, inform and guide Californians to live a better life in the places they chose to call home.
