In its February and March 2023 issues, Education Reporter exposed the liberal bias and poor rewriting of mainstream media news articles by the popular platform, Newsela, which is now used in 90 percent of U.S. schools. When it was founded in 2013, Newsela was allegedly intended to foster reading and English Language Arts using mainstream news stories rewritten for students at various grade levels, hence the “ela” in the platform’s title.

However, “media literacy” has become the popular buzz term in education and in our culture, which observers say has little to do with actual literacy and much to do with spreading leftwing propaganda. Never a disseminator of unbiased news stories for the sole purpose of helping students become better readers, Newsela has jumped on the media literacy bandwagon.

An organization called Media Literacy Now publishes a report each year summarizing “the status of media literacy education for K-12 schools in the U.S.” The latest U.S. Media Literacy Policy Report, released in February of this year, shows that “19 state legislatures” have acted to create policy on media literacy, with 18 state governors signing bills “concerning K-12 media literacy or digital citizenship education,” and one state legislature passing “two resolutions.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, California has passed “a comprehensive media literacy law that will redirect priorities and funding to media literacy curriculum and professional development.” This development, states Media Literacy, “is a major advancement that will reverberate across the country.”

For many, the question is who determines what “media literacy” means in terms of what students will be taught? Newsela provides a prime example.

Exposing Newsela

A recent article by the Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO), an organization that seeks to “protect Americans from internet censorship” through educational reports, legal assistance, and public policy analysis exposes Newsela’s “advocacy for media literacy instruction ahead of major elections.” FFO’s mission is “to provide nonpartisan insights and assistance to all peoples taking a stand for freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and the free exchange of ideas online.”

According to the Foundation, “Media literacy organizations (including the well-known government-funded media blacklisting organization, NewsGuard), have focused on creating products for educators to teach students not how to read or think critically, but instead teach students what they should read.” They write:

• In their own words, Newsela curates material from “trusted sources and makes it instruction ready for ELA, social studies, and science classrooms.” The content from these “trusted” and “vetted” sources is rewritten by their editorial staff to be easily read and interpreted based on a child’s reading level.

Newsela’s “trusted sources” are “exclusively establishment-approved partisan publishers such as The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, and The Guardian.” None of Newsela’s over 100 content partners are non-establishment. Even moderate right-of-center outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Fox News are absent.

The Foundation reports that Newsguard blacklists conservative news sites under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” and that research shows it scores right-leaning news outlets 27 points lower than liberal sites. Newsguard is even on record as “calling for ad revenue to be stripped from disfavored websites,” and provides advertisers with “Brandguard,” a product consisting of “inclusion and exclusion lists” that dissuade advertisers from doing business with excluded organizations.

Last September, Accuracy In Media (AIM) reported that the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan included “a provision that combines with other COVID legislation to make $190 billion available to help K-12 schools upgrade their curricula to Newsela ... a platform run by a progressive former teacher who is dedicated to teaching Critical Race Theory in public schools.”

AIM employs “investigative journalism and citizen activism to expose media bias, corruption and public policy failings.” It explains that Newsela has teamed up with “radical content providers including the Zinn Education Project, the 1619 Project, and the Southern Poverty Law Center,” and that Newsela is a “workaround” for teaching controversial topics that some states have banned.

An investigative hidden-camera video report produced by AIM last year exposes teachers and administrators admitting to the liberal bias of Newsela’s repackaged “news.” One administrator noted in the video that, while restricted from teaching CRT, her school district has “access to a company called Newsela.” What she loves, she said, is that “they just curate a ton of articles from the Washington Post and like kind of all over ... and rewrite them kid friendly,” clearly implying that CRT is taught through Newsela’s “news” stories.

Electioneering for Democrats

FFO contends that Newsela is aligned with the nationwide movement among states to adopt media literacy education, and “has been increasingly crafting and packaging election-related educational resources with a focus on pushing media literacy in the classroom.” (Emphasis added.) But as many ask, from what skewed point of view?

The AIM investigation caused some controversy for Newsela, but the organization continues to operate unfettered, bringing censored reports posing as unchallengeable fact to students across the country.

A since-deleted post from the American Press Institute (API), an affiliate of the News Media Alliance, enthused about API’s partnership with Newsela, writing in part:

• We can’t think of a better time to emphasize media literacy than election season. These resources [e.g., Newsela] ensure that any student, no matter his or her reading level, is equipped with the necessary tools to analyze the media and its messages. And once students are better able to evaluate media based on reliability and accuracy, they’ll be able to apply these skills beyond the classroom for years to come.

While posing as non-biased, a deep dive into API’s website reveals its bias; for example, against former president Donald Trump, labeling him a “prolific liar.” This particular page also quotes sources critical of law enforcement, charging police with “disseminating falsehoods about crime” and faulting their response to criminal acts.

Prior to the 2022 midterm elections, Newsela created a free content guide for teachers, which covered topics such as voting rights, climate policy, the economy, “races and candidates to watch.” Parents and observers may well imagine the slanted views that were presented given the controlled sources of information from which the content was produced. FFO writes that with the looming 2024 presidential election, Newsela has for months “been increasing efforts to push educators to teach students which information sources to trust.”

FFO cautions that many of Newsela’s lessons “are grounded in the work” of its partner, Teaching Tolerance, “a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SLPC),” a far-left hate group that not only spews propaganda, but blacklists organizations with which it disagrees, as reported in Education Reporter last October.

FFO further warns that efforts to promote the notion of media literacy have served to allow “the censorship industry” to gain a foothold in American schools, with state policymakers “unknowingly helping them by failing to scrutinize some of the organizations and companies” pushing this agenda.

State Legislators, education administrators, and parents should educate themselves on the issue of media literacy and what this new curriculum is actually teaching K-12 kids.

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