Transcript for Student Reporting Lab: Media Literacy

Judy Woodruff: There's a national movement in schools to teach media literacy skills to teenagers who are growing up with access to more information than any previous generation. In an era marked by calls of fake news and declining trust in media, we turn to our Student Reporting Labs to learn more about how young people experience news and how they think about journalism.

Courtney Smith: You don't really know what you can believe, because there are so many sources saying so many different things.

Camden Miller: It's weakening the trust between the media and the audience.

Tristan Eddings: I'm pretty sure that I have shared fake news, but I didn't realize it until someone corrected me.

Julia Joy: No one knows what to trust and what not to trust anymore.

Hector Machucha: I shared a couple stories back during the presidential election that might not be as true as I originally believed they were.

Jennifer Anyaegbu: We're having a problem of people actually believing it, and then going forward with that news to have riots and things like that.

Mary Williams: I believe that it's the new epidemic, because people don't understand how fast fake news spreads.

Muna Ezbuoiwe: I remember there was a time everybody thought we were in a gas crisis because of Hurricane Harvey and everybody thought gas was running out. So it spread throughout social media and everybody got in a panic.

Addison Tusten: I don't necessarily think fake news is a problem so much as misinformation. People often are keen to take whatever information they're given right off the bat, sometimes without thinking about where it's coming from or what it implies.

Angel Rivera: It is a person's first instinct to believe that what they see is true automatically. And people need to just double check that make sure they're getting the information from reliable sources

Ushni Gupta: Journalism definitely does matter. It is the purest form of communication between people, the politics, and global issues.

Henry Smith: We live in a democracy where the people make decisions about government. To make those decisions, we need information. And without journalism, where are we going to get it from? Twitter?

Trinity Aberin: We need to incorporate a type of lesson plan to improve our digital literacy skills.

Zoe Greenwald: We spend more time in the media than any generation ever has. And with all of this information being circulated, we need to make sure that the information that's getting to the audience is factual and is correct.