Members of the LWVWA’s Media Literacy and News Education team are, from left to right, Brenda Mann Harrison, Lyn Whitley, Joanne Lisosky, and Lisa Stettler.

Recognizing the vital link between local news and empowered voters, the League of Women Voters of Washington advocates for a robust local news ecosystem and encourages media literacy and news education.

“Empowering voters to defend democracy requires adults of all ages to learn skills that help them discern what is true — and to increase their understanding of the role local news plays in healthy communities and democracy,” noted Brenda Mann Harrison, of the LWVWA Media Literacy and News Education program.

Harrison explained that having completed an extensive training program for League members, the Media Literacy and News Education team is now moving into the second stage of its work: The development of a toolkit to take that training into the wider community.

The training to be offered to community members will build on the instruction featured in four workshops and an introductory video the team provided League members beginning in September 2025.  That material centered on what is media and news literacy and why we need it, the power of critical thinking, making sense of information, recognizing techniques that are used to sway opinion, and an introduction to artificial intelligence.

This summer the team, which includes Harrison, Joanne Lisosky, Lyn Whitley and Lisa Stettler, is surveying League members throughout the state to determine what kind of media and news education toolkits would work best with the adults in their community.

“The feedback we receive will help us develop resources for League members to promote skills that enable individuals to be savvy consumers of media and information,” Harrison added. “We will also draw on material from the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, which has encouraged our team to share its current research and teaching tools.”

The goal is for local League volunteers across the state to be prepared to offer training in their communities sometime after the new year.

The League began sharing some of its training with the public in a small way several months ago. Every month, the newsletter of the Project for Civic Health publishes a media literacy and news education tip for readers prepared by the League’s Media Literacy and News Education team.

The project is a collaboration of the office of Lt. Gov. Denny Heck, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, the University of Washington’s Evans School, and the William D. Ruckelshaus Center.  Among a number of goals, the project seeks to find “common ground for the common ground,” which includes a greater understanding of government and civics education, a goal shared by the League as well.