NLP Annual Report FY24 - Report - Page 17
ALAN C. MILLER
EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR
JOHN S. CARROLL
JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Lindsay Downs
Tamoa Calzadilla
Sewickley Academy
Sewickley, Pennsylvania
Factchequeado
Miami
It’s certainly factual to say that Lindsay Downs is
a librarian at the Sewickley Academy in suburban
Pittsburgh. But that statement fails to capture
all that she does and the values that drive her.
Downs has long been a committed educator,
a champion of cross-discipline learning and
an advocate for helping students become
more savvy news consumers. “I have been
teaching for 15 years” and helping students
discern fact from 昀椀ction “is a labor of love.”
Since 昀椀rst learning about NLP at an American
Association of School Librarians conference in
2021, she has used the digital learning platform
Checkology, the newsletter The Sift, infographics
and other downloadable material in her curriculum.
She believes news literacy gives students
agency inside and outside of the classroom.
“It’s really amazing to empower others to be
the managers of their own learning. You’re
teaching people how to be independent
learners, and that’s a very powerful thing.”
Tamoa Calzadilla understands better than most people
how vital a free press is to a functioning democracy.
The editor-in-chief of Factchequeado, an initiative
created to counter mis- and disinformation within
Spanish-speaking communities in the U.S., she has
practiced journalism in conditions where press freedoms
were protected as well as under a dictatorship.
Calzadilla also has been a dedicated partner with
NLP since 2022. She assisted in two election
campaigns by recording Spanish-language content,
providing translations of NLP resources, and earlier
this year participating in NLP’s 昀椀rst-ever Spanishlanguage event on election misinformation.
“I think news literacy should be required for high school
curriculums,” she told NLP in a recorded interview.
The internationally recognized award-winning journalist
and her family were forced to 昀氀ee their native Venezuela
after her coverage of government corruption and
repression put them in danger. Calzadilla’s work at
Factchequeado and with NLP is deeply important to her. “I
love the idea of collaborating to do something powerful.”
Read more about Downs and
watch her story here.
Read more about Calzadilla and
watch her story here.
About the award
About the award
Alan C. Miller founded the News Literacy Project in 2008
to give middle and high school educators the tools to
teach students how to separate fact from 昀椀ction. As a
reporter with the Los Angeles Times for 21 years, he won
more than a dozen national honors, including a Pulitzer
Prize for National Reporting. In 2020, Washingtonian
magazine named him a Washingtonian of the Year, and
in 2021, he received an AARP Purpose Prize. As Miller
prepared to step down as NLP’s CEO in 2022, the board
of directors designated the Educator of the Year Award
in his name to recognize his contributions to the 昀椀eld.
Named for one of the most revered newspaper editors of
his generation, the John S. Carroll Journalist of the Year
Award is given annually to journalists who have contributed
signi昀椀cantly to NLP’s mission. During an acclaimed journalism
career spanning four decades, Carroll was the editor of
three major U.S. newspapers: the Lexington (Kentucky)
Herald-Leader, The Baltimore Sun and the Los Angeles
Times. He was a founding member of NLP’s board and
served as its chair until shortly before his death in 2015.
THE NEWS LITERACY PROJECT
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