Interview with Mary Hamilton: Improving news literacy through collaboration

News literacy is essential to build trust in journalism. Over the last year a coalition of media specialists, academics, educators and journalists have sat down to brainstorm in order to find solutions and opportunities which can bring trust to journalism.

In the panel discussion “Improving news literacy through collaboration” Charlie Beckett,  Director of Polis; Dan Gillmor, Professor at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication; Mary Hamilton, executive editor of audience at The Guardian; Áine Kerr, Manager of global journalism partnerships at Facebook, and British student Max explained why is vital to improve news literacy through collaboration.

All the speakers mentioned the importance of building a trust relationship between journalists and audience based on transparency, and to provide users with educational tools on  tips, tricks and information regarding the use of Facebook. News literacy in schools should be encouraged more and developed via new methods also with the help of platforms like Facebook and Google, who have a responsibility to build this news literacy.

Gillmor pointed out that at this time and age the public consumes news more than ever before: the people need to become more critical and more sceptical in order to distinguish fake news from accurate ones.

“It is a broader set of issues that we want to work on,” Hamilton said during the panel, highlighting the importance to investigate why readers do not wish to read the news today, or why they tend to read only particular columns.

Student Max brought into the discussion the point of view of the younger generation, arguing that to them it’s very important knowing what is happening in the world. He also added that news literacy should be established at schools in a more extensive way.

Hamilton shared her opinion regarding news literacy through collaboration and the possible advantages or disadvantages that may arise from having several stakeholders working together.