NLP AR FY21 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 12
2021 Change-Makers
In recognition of their outstanding achievements during the 2020-21 school year, NLP named the recipients of its educator, journalist
and students of the year awards in June. Honorees are recognized as having distinguished themselves in their commitment to news
literacy in their classrooms, in their professions and in their daily lives. The awards also acknowledge their efforts as leading voices in
support of news literacy education. We are grateful for their contributions in the fight for facts. Recipients are selected by a committee
of NLP board members and staff.
EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR
Kelly Vikstrom-Hoyt
Director of library services, The Overlake School
in Redmond, Washington
It didn’t take the tumultuous events of 2020
and the accompanying flood of misinformation
to convince educator Kelly Vikstrom-Hoyt that
news literacy should be part of every school’s
curriculum. She already knew it. “As the
librarian, I consider it my duty to integrate news
literacy across as many areas of the curriculum
as I can,” Vikstrom-Hoyt told NLP.
As a news literacy leader at her school,
Vikstrom-Hoyt saw proof that students
absorbed what they learned and applied it to
other disciplines. For example, an eighth-grade
civics class that completed the Checkology
lesson on bias in the media then worked
on projects for their civics teacher using
what they had studied. “The teachers told
me that {students} incorporated a lot of the
language and the lessons they learned into
that project without even being prompted to
do it,” Vikstrom-Hoyt said. “Then, even better,
when they did the next project down the line
that wasn’t even tied to the lesson, they were
still pulling in those skills, and naming the
terms and the things that I taught them in the
Checkology lesson.”
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Annual Report FY21
JOHN S. CARROLL
JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Alisyn Camerota
Co-host, CNN Newsroom
Alisyn Camerota has provided unflinching
coverage and vital and verified information on
major news stories to millions of people as a
leading broadcast journalist.
She also has seen misinformation increasingly
pollute the information landscape. If such
distortions and falsehoods are not called out
and corrected, she says, real harm can occur,
which is what happened during the Jan. 6 riot at
the U.S. Capitol.
“People stormed the Capitol because they had
misinformation. They were fed falsehoods
and lies about the election, and they didn’t
know that,” Camerota said during an interview
with NLP. “You can have your own conspiracy
theories, but you can’t have your own facts.”
Camerota has been involved with NLP
since 2017 and is a member of our National
Leadership Council.
“I’m really touched and flattered to receive the
John S. Carroll Award, particularly this year,”
Camerota said. “It has been a really challenging
year for journalism to be able to broadcast
during a global pandemic.”
