Media Literacy

Jan. 23, 2024: National News Literacy Week
The stated mission of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit, is building a national movement to advance the practice of news literacy throughout American society, creating better informed, more engaged and more empowered individuals — and ultimately a stronger democracy. News literacy is an integral part of American life, and people of all ages and backgrounds must know how to identify credible news and other information and understand the indispensable role a free press has in a democracy, empowering them to play a more equal and active role in the civic life of the country.

Presenter Dr. Bob Britten is an associate professor at the WVU Reed College of Media.

He has worked as a reporter, graphics reporter, designer, art director, graphics editor and editorial director, in addition to picking up freelance writing and designing jobs. Britten has worked for newspapers of various sizes (the Greenville Record-Argus, the Meadville Tribune, the Columbia Missourian, the Seattle Times), as well as publications such as Vox (an alternative newsweekly in Missouri), Allegheny magazine, and a national agriculture magazine, Farm Journal, and its subsidiary, Beef Today. He also designed and art-directed Crescendo!, a fashion magazine in Columbia, Missouri. Britten earned his B.A. in English (2000) from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and earned his master’s (2004) and doctorate (2008) in journalism from the University of Missouri. He was also a 2003 Visual Journalism Fellow at the Poynter Institute. Britten’s areas of interest are visual communication, rhetoric and culture, especially the role of these in building and maintaining social memory. Britten has taught courses in magazine design, information graphics, interactive design, photography in society and qualitative research methods. He teaches visual communication and news design courses at WVU.