PRSA Partners with News Literacy Project to Create Programming Exclusively for PRSA and PRSSA Members

NEW YORK, August 22, 2022 -- PRSA, the nation’s leading professional organization serving the communications community, and the News Literacy Project, the nation’s leading provider of news literacy education, have partnered to create a series of webinars exclusively for PRSA and PRSSA members.

Under the heading of “Are You as News Literate as You Can Be,” these three sessions are designed to strengthen communications professionals’ effectiveness in counseling clients, improve their ability to recognize and battle disinformation, and incorporate news literacy into their overall strategies and daily practice.

“We are all in the news business, whether we’re acquiring it, understanding it or communicating it, and there’s no such thing as too much knowledge about how it shapes everything we do,” said Dr. Felicia Blow, APR, 2022 PRSA Chair. “Working with The News Literacy Project to create these webinars is a great example of the exclusive benefits we are consistently providing our members.”

The webinar schedule is:

·      Session One (Oct. 4, 3-3:45 p.m. ET), identifying different information sources and how each has a unique purpose in the information landscape.

·      Session Two (Oct. 11, 3-3:45 p.m. ET), homing in on learning a nuanced approach to news media bias and the surprising ways it can creep into news coverage.

·      Session Three (Oct. 18, 3-3:45 p.m. ET), helping members understand misinformation and the motivations behind its spread.

Each webinar will be led by John Silva, senior director of professional and community learning for the News Literacy Project. Silva spent several years in corporate telecommunications before deciding to become a teacher. He has 13 years of experience as a middle and high school social studies teacher with Chicago Public Schools, and first became involved with news literacy in 2014, when his students engaged in NLP’s original classroom program.

“News literacy helps people understand how to separate fact from fiction,” Silva said. “We believe communications professionals are uniquely positioned to help combat mis- and disinformation through their work, so we are thrilled to provide training in these essential skills to the people who are in the business of sharing information.”