In today’s online world, it is sometimes difficult to separate fact from fiction. Dean Miller, Director of the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University gave a presentation on March 22 to educate students about online news media.

Stony Brook’s School of Journalism has the nation’s first News Literacy center.  The center was designed to educate current and future news consumers about evaluating the credibility and the reliability of online news.

“News literacy is important to your generation because you guys rely totally on digital information, so those questions of authenticity are extra important, ” said Mr. Miller.

The presentation included a slide show and examples of the media misuse of social networks.

Students reported that it became easier to identify fraudulent information.

“It really helped me realize that you can’t trust everything you read.  There are so many more people today who want to create chaos in this world through false information,” said sophomore Grace Trunz.