Colorado just passed a bill that will create media literacy guidelines for schools. It joins Utah and a growing number of states tackling this issue.
Colorado’s legislation will create an advisory committee of teachers, journalists, librarians and others. The group will make recommendations on how to incorporate media literacy education into existing K-12 school curricula.
Democrat Lisa Cutter sponsored the bill.
“We had some amazing testimony from teachers and journalists,” said Cutter, “about how they’re fighting misinformation all the time.”
Cutter said the prevalence of smart phones and social media has given youth nearly 24/7 access to information, but like the rest of us, they don’t always know how to sort real information from opinion or even quote “fake news.”
“I feel like it’s really important that kids are able to discern, 'what is an advertisement?' 'What is an infomercial?' Versus what is actual information,” Cutter said.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUER in Salt Lake City and KRCC and KUNC in Colorado.
