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ASNE hosts three roundtables with King County Library System

In May, ASNE's National Community and News Literacy Roundtables Project hosted a series of facilitated community discussions in partnership with the King County (Washington) Library System. As part of KCLS' "Everyone's Talking About It" adult learning programming, the roundtables covered homelessness, food insecurity and mental health at three KCLS libraries.
The meaningful discussions ranged in attendance of up to 25 participants that represented a diverse mix of community stakeholders and nonstakeholders. Participants in the three roundtables included community, civic and association leaders; students from WSU and other regional schools; individuals currently living in their vehicles while gainfully employed; issue advocates and/or experts; generally interested community members; residents of public housing; and local representatives.

The small size of the roundtables (15-25) allowed for a focused, participatory discussion about the sources of information residents trust to help form their opinions and why, the process of verification in journalism and how to recognize it, consideration of bias and perspective while consuming news and the coverage they seek from their local media. The conversations were lively, informed and valuable. 

ASNE is working with the King County Library System to partner again for the fall 2016 adult learning programming. If you are a library or library system interested in introducing news literacy roundtables to your programming, then please email project manager Clair Lorell at clorell@asne.org.


 

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