ANNOUNCE: Two Free PD Opportunities for Social Studies

Learn the skills you need to find trustworthy news

It seems like finding credible information and sources online gets trickier by the day. But when you sign up for our free webinar series How to find news you can trust, you will discover how to outsmart the bad actors that flood our newsfeeds with misinformation.

The series begins a week from today — April 12 — and runs for three consecutive Wednesdays, starting at 4 p.m. ET. Register once for the whole series.

April 12: Session 1 | What is quality journalism?

News outlets help us make informed decisions, but the process of creating news isn’t always transparent. In this session, journalists Brandon Pope of WBEZ Chicago and Molly Parker of Lee Enterprises will discuss how they build credibility and trust with the public and will describe the standards that guide their newsgathering. This session will pull the curtain back on the practice of quality, ethical journalism and its mission to inform us accurately.

Brandon is an award-winning and Emmy-nominated journalist, media critic and columnist, and host of the podcasts On The Block: Powered by Block Club Chicago on CW26 and the MAKING series from WBEZ and NPR. Molly, a ProPublica distinguished fellow, is an investigative reporter with Lee Enterprises’ Public Service Team, where she works with regional reporters in 25 states to produce impactful, data-driven local journalism.

April 19: Session 2 | Understanding news media bias

People frequently perceive and allege bias in news coverage, but what does this really mean? What makes a piece of news biased, and who decides? Journalist Amethyst J. Davis, founder of the Harvey World Herald, a hyperlocal, independent newsroom in Illinois, and Stephanie Casanova of Signal Cleveland, a nonprofit newsroom that fuses community building with local news reporting, join us to discuss how the journalistic standards we learned about in Session 1 can be applied to confront and avoid news bias. This session will empower you to evaluate the fairness, accuracy and objectivity of news coverage.

Amethyst oversees growth and development, including outlining editorial trajectory and content, at the Harvey World Herald. A member of the community advisory board for Chicago Public Media, she is a Casey Fellow with the National Association of Black Journalists Black News & Views. Stephanie is the criminal justice reporter with Signal Cleveland and formerly covered criminal justice and breaking news at the Chicago Tribune.

April 26: Session 3 | How fact-checking works

Fact-checking organizations are taking up the charge to combat the spread of misinformation, debunking some of the most viral content springing up on social media. Fact-checkers Dan Evon of the News Literacy Project and Rafael Olavarría of Factchequeado will talk about their work and share skills that you can use to check the accuracy of information.

Dan debunks viral rumors for NLP’s RumorGuard™ platform, which empowers the public to push back against misinformation. Prior to joining NLP in 2022, Dan worked as a reporter for Snopes, the internet’s oldest fact-checking site. Rafael, a Venezuelan immigrant who fled political persecution, began his journalism career as a producer and writer for CNN and won 11 Southeast Emmy Awards as a multimedia journalist with Univisión.

We hope to see you next week!

For a future founded on facts,
The News Literacy Project

P.S. If you miss one of the sessions, don’t worry, we’ll share recordings of all three.

Second opportunity:

Please join us for our 16-hour in-person Holocaust by Bullets Teacher Workshop for current middle and high school teachers, pre-service teachers who are currently enrolled in an accredited college/university program, and current college/university faculty being held on Friday and Saturday, April 21-22 (at the UNC Lowry Campus in Aurora, CO...more details will be made available after your registration is confirmed).

Learn more about this often-forgotten but, essential chapter of Holocaust history, to hear the voices of those who witnessed it. You will also be introduced to contemporary mass killings, like that of the Mayan populations in Guatemala, and genocides, like that of the Yazidi people in Iraq, both of which have been investigated by Yahad – In Unum’s teams. Please see the attached flyers for information on the specifics of the workshop. This is the same workshop being offered two separate times. Seating will be limited; please register as soon as possible.

To register for this FREE seminar, please reply to this email (tphennessy@hotmail.com), and we will send you a very brief questionnaire to fill out; we will then register you for this workshop. Current middle and high school teachers, pre-service teachers who are currently enrolled in an accredited college/university program, and current college/university faculty will be enrolled after completing the questionnaire.

Note: Through a very generous donor, we have funding available to assist in lodging, meals, and transportation costs for a select number of COLORADO registrants only. If you are from out of state, you are still encouraged and welcome to join us, and we will certainly help you plan your travel to be the most cost-effective possible. We truly wish we could offer the travel stipend for all educators; however, at this time, our funding is very specific from our donor.

A light breakfast, lunch, and beverages will be offered on both days. More information to come after your registration is confirmed. Vegetarian, Vegan, and Kosher options will be offered.

Please reach out with any questions regarding the workshops, logistics, or anything else we may have missed at this time.

Take care and be safe.

Ewa and Todd

Ewa Schaller & Todd Hennessy

Yahad-In Unum

"…There are already people who think that every Jew who died in the Holocaust died at Auschwitz, died in a concentration camp, died in a gas chamber. No. There's whole chapters of this story."

Daniel Mendelsohn [Author of Lost: A Search of Six of Six Million, 2006]

The U.S. and the Holocaust Documentary, 2022

Episode 3 The Homeless, Tempest Tossed (1942 - )

It is now known that at least one-third of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust perished in the mass shootings perpetrated in Eastern Europe by the Nazi mobile death squads and their collaborators. Father Patrick Desbois and Yahad-In Unum have been documenting, investigating, and recording this chapter of the Holocaust since 2004. Father Desbois and Yahad-In Unum have currently identified over 3,200 execution sites and have interviewed over 7,500 eye-witnesses in eleven countries where the Holocaust by bullets took place.

Now, classroom and pre-service teachers can participate in an educational seminar with Yahad-In Unum Educators and Investigators who have directly participated in the investigations of the history of the Holocaust by bullets and the interviews with the eye-witnesses.

Flyer