“Occasionally, I had watched the evening news with my parents and read the newspaper, but I never fully realized the impact that news had on my daily life,” said Lucy Chen, a soon-to-be junior at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md. “And studying news literacy taught me how to gather and assess my own stream of information, whether it come from a newspaper, a TV show, or the Internet.”

The above paragraph appears in Chen’s article in the recent edition of the Nieman Reports, which is published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Chen is one of many students to take part in the News Literacy Project, a program designed to educate middle and high school students on how to discern fact from fiction in the digital age.

Alan Miller, a former investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times and founder of the News Literacy Project, wrote in the same edition of the Nieman Reports, “In the 2009-10 school year, the News Literacy Project worked with 21 English, history and government teachers in seven middle schools and high schools in New York City, Bethesda and Chicago, reaching nearly 1,500 students. More than 75 journalists spoke to students and worked with them on projects.”

Miller brought in several seasoned journalists to help with the project: Gwen Ifill, Sheryl Gay, Peter Eisler, and James Grimaldi – to name a few.

The project engaged students in discussions and activities through a variety of subject matter, said Miller in his article. He added that teachers were also able to adapt the curriculum to fit their own needs.

To view both of the above articles, and the Nieman Reports’ entire section on “Digital Youth,” click here.

Today we are going to start a new feature, The Weekly Index, where I will try to point you towards some interesting articles, websites, features, videos and podcasts that pertain to campus journalism.

So, let’s get started!

• The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article and video about campus news blogs. Some of the blogs have become so popular that they are scooping the campus newspapers.
• How do journalists cover an event in the aftermath of such a terrible natural disaster? The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz tells us in today’s column.
• Tiffany Luckey, Generation J Committee member, posted a video to their committee’s blog featuring Colleen Kiphart asking the question, “What does diversity mean to you?”
• Kevin Smith, SPJ’s president used his blog to recap what SPJ has been up to lately. Leave some time to read this, because we’ve been doing A LOT! Part of that is about defending students, too.
• Dan Kubiske talks about the scuffle between Google and China on the Journalism and The World blog. Some of the hacks seemed to target journalists.
• USA TODAY spends “a few minutes with Andy Rooney,” and they talk about his 31 years at 60 Minutes and a possible retirement in the very distant future.

“I hate to say it, but a computer is better than a typewriter.” ~ Andy Rooney

• Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism said they found that print journalism is still the best source to find out information about a community.
• The Student Press Law Center has some information about a contest that allows high school students to win a nice chunk of change for a winning PSA on the First Amendment.

That’s all for this week! Don’t forget to check back for longer blog posts throughout the week, and I will see you back here for The Weekly Index next Friday!

Happy reporting!

p.s. You can always follow us on Twitter, too.

Students who are enrolled in a college or university in the U.S. during 2009 and completed outstanding journalism are invited and encouraged to enter the Mark of Excellence Awards.

Print, radio, television and online collegiate journalism entires are eligible.

Once entries are submitted they are judged on the regional level, and are recognized during the spring conferences. First place regional winners are then entered into the national competition, where winners will be honored at the 2010 SPJ Convention & National Journalism Conference in Las Vegas!

Entering the contest is also easier than it has ever been before. All a person needs is a great piece of journalism and a computer.
Here is all the information anyone would need to know about the awards, and here is a list of last year’s winners.