Knowing the News: An Interactive Media Literacy Workshop

In 2018, a CNN analysis revealed that President Trump tweeted the word “fake” 400 times since his 2017 inauguration, often in reference to the “crooked” liberal media. Contrary to what you might think, Trump did not coin the phrase “fake news,” a term popularized by journalists and pundits in 2016 and used to identify hoaxes and deceitful news stories. But Trump has clearly weaponized the term, reducing it to a pouty and reckless slur, which has made it increasingly more difficult to discern fact from fiction from “fake news” from Orange-tinted bombast. Fear not, for help is on the way: PEN America has teamed up with the Detroit Public Library to host a free 90-minute workshop aimed at helping participants understand professional journalism as a way to approach media with a more critical eye. PEN America’s interactive news-literacy workshop will also reveal how we can refine our “news diets” and protect our mental health from the onslaught of nonstop news media we ingest daily. (Pre-workshop pro-tip: Actually read the article before blindly sharing it on social media, check the source, and for fuck’s sake, check the date it was published!)