The News Literacy Project (NLP) is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that provides news literacy education to students, educators, and the general public. Founded in 2008 by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Alan C. Miller, it is the country's leading provider of news literacy education, working with educators in all 50 states. Its signature offering is Checkology, a free e-learning platform that teaches students how to identify credible information, recognize misinformation and disinformation, and determine what to trust, share, and act on.
Founding and Mission
The News Literacy Project was founded in 2008 by Alan Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times. It began as a classroom project in middle and high schools in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago, bringing working journalists into schools to teach students how news is reported. Its lessons were deliberately apolitical, created with input from real journalists, and focused on the earmarks of quality journalism: verification, sourcing, fairness, and accountability.
The organization's stated purpose is to provide resources for educators, students, and the general public to help them learn to identify credible information, recognize misinformation and disinformation, and determine what they can trust, share, and act on. Its long-term goal is to build a national movement ensuring that all students are skilled in news literacy before high school graduation.
Checkology: The Virtual Classroom
In May 2016 — in the midst of a presidential campaign that would dramatically raise the profile of misinformation — NLP launched Checkology, its e-learning platform and virtual classroom, to scale its work beyond in-person school visits. Any classroom with an internet connection could now access interactive courses taught by distinguished journalists from organizations such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BuzzFeed News.
Checkology includes 13 interactive lessons with exercises, quizzes, and activities built around current events. Students learn to categorize information, make and critique news judgments, detect and dissect viral rumors, interpret and apply the First Amendment, recognize confirmation bias, and evaluate the credibility of sources. In one signature exercise, students step into the role of a young reporter covering a breaking story — interviewing experts and eyewitnesses, reviewing material, and building a story piece by piece. The platform is free for educators, and NLP provides lesson plans, infographics, posters, and instructional supports alongside it.
Programs and Products
Beyond Checkology, NLP operates a suite of programs. NewsLitCamp brings educators together with journalists for professional development workshops. The Sift is a weekly newsletter for educators that curates timely examples of misinformation and news literacy teachable moments. The Informable mobile app offers short news literacy exercises for the general public. Get Smart About News provides resources tied to current events, and RumorGuard helps users identify and respond to viral rumors.
NLP also produces the Is That a Fact? podcast, maintains a Misinformation Dashboard tracking false claims around elections, and co-leads National News Literacy Week, an annual public awareness campaign held each winter in partnership with journalism organizations. In September 2020, NLP expanded its mission to the general public, unveiling free tools including a customized version of Checkology for adults, in response to what founder Alan Miller called an existential threat to democracy from misinformation and low news literacy.
Leadership and Organization
Alan Miller led the organization as founder and CEO from 2008, stepping back from day-to-day leadership in the early 2020s; Charles Salter, a former school superintendent who had served as the organization's chief operating officer, became CEO. The board has included prominent journalism and technology figures, with Karen Wickre serving as board chair and Walt Mossberg as vice chair, alongside members such as journalist Abby Phillip. The organization is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
NLP's staff blends educators, journalists, and digital media experts. Its curriculum development draws on working reporters and editors, and its partnerships span school districts, journalism organizations, technology companies, and foundations.
Founder Alan Miller's Background
Alan C. Miller spent more than two decades as an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where his reporting earned a Pulitzer Prize. His investigations covered national security, the military, and government accountability. The idea for the News Literacy Project grew from his observation that even well-educated readers struggled to distinguish reported journalism from rumor and advocacy online — a problem he believed would only deepen as social media grew. He founded NLP in 2008, initially funding classroom visits in Washington, D.C., New York, and Chicago out of a conviction that journalists themselves should teach the next generation how news is made.
National News Literacy Week and Public Campaigns
Each winter, NLP co-leads National News Literacy Week, a public awareness campaign that brings together news organizations, educators, and civic groups for events, classroom activities, and media appearances promoting news literacy skills. The week features live virtual events with journalists, downloadable classroom resources, and social media campaigns encouraging the public to practice verification habits. NLP also publishes The Sift, its weekly newsletter for educators, which curates that week's most teachable examples of misinformation and media manipulation for classroom discussion.
Reach and Impact
NLP describes itself as the country's leading provider of news literacy education and reports working with educators in all 50 states. Its materials have been used by hundreds of thousands of students, and its public-facing resources expanded its audience substantially after 2020. The organization measures its impact through educator surveys, student assessments within Checkology, and research partnerships studying the effectiveness of news literacy instruction.
Independent coverage of the organization — including a 2018 Fast Company feature and a 2021 interview with Miller in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — credited NLP with pioneering classroom news literacy at a time when few organizations treated it as a distinct discipline. The 2016 election and the COVID-19 "infodemic" made its work, as Miller noted, "suddenly and unmistakably far more relevant."
Funding
As a nonprofit, the News Literacy Project is funded by foundation grants, corporate contributions, and individual donations. Its supporters have included major journalism-focused foundations and technology companies with an interest in information quality. NLP has also received significant philanthropic commitments aimed at scaling Checkology nationally and expanding its work to adult audiences.
Awards and Recognition
NLP's work has earned national recognition, including the David M. Rubenstein Prize in 2023, a Webby People's Voice Award in 2024, and a HundrED Spotlight on Digital Wellbeing award in 2019. Founder Alan Miller has been honored individually for his role in creating the field of news literacy education, and the organization is frequently cited by researchers and policymakers working on misinformation.
Approach and Editorial Philosophy
NLP's curriculum is nonpartisan by design: it teaches skills and standards — how to verify a claim, how to read a story for sourcing, how the First Amendment protects the press — rather than taking positions on contested issues. Its materials are created with input from journalists across the industry, and its examples draw from viral misinformation of all kinds, regardless of political valence. The organization argues that news literacy, like reading literacy, is a foundational civic skill rather than an ideological project.
Critics of media literacy efforts in general have sometimes questioned whether classroom programs can meaningfully change behavior online; NLP points to assessment data and educator testimony, while acknowledging that news literacy is one component of a broader response to misinformation that also involves platform design, journalism quality, and public policy.
Contact and Access
The News Literacy Project is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Educators can register for free Checkology accounts at get.checkology.org, and the organization's resources, newsletter, and program information are available at newslit.org. National News Literacy Week materials are published at newsliteracyweek.org.
