In the quest for new ways to combat misinformation, partnerships between media organizations and libraries are on the rise

Collaborations between libraries and media outlets intuitively make sense. At their core, journalists and librarians have overlapping missions. Both want to ensure that people are informed and connected to the resources they need to live civically engaged lives. And as the need for a media-literate public has become increasingly apparent, a series of innovative partnerships have put those principles into practice.

From Kansas City to Dallas to Cleveland, news outlets recognize that libraries offer spaces where journalists can connect with the communities they cover. Libraries also have the trust of the public. A Pew study from 2017 found that 40 percent of American adults trust libraries “a lot” while only 18 percent said the same thing about local news.

Libraries have maintained this trust—and a physical presence in many communities—at a time when news outlets are struggling to do the same. According to a Medill School of Journalism report published last year, the number of local news deserts expanded in the U.S. as 127 newspapers shuttered. This left nearly 55 million Americans with limited to no access to local news. This, combined with the rampant increase in misinformation online, has led to a growing need for librarians and news organizations to work together.

Libraries, meanwhile, can use news outlets’ platforms to get the word out about joint programming, co-produced content, or regular library events. And by bringing journalists into library spaces, librarians can help promote media literacy by demystifying the journalistic process and giving members of the public a chance to have their voices heard by the press. Librarians and journalists have a unique opportunity to join forces and promote media literacy education.

WHAT IS MEDIA LITERACY?

Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, former executive director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education, defines media literacy as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication.

“The way that we frame it, it really is about an expanded definition of literacy,” she says. “So what does it mean to be a consumer and an author in today’s media landscape?”

Often, this comes down to knowing how to ask informed questions about a media item—whether that’s a news story, TikTok video, or Facebook post.

According to Ciulla Lipkin, teaching media literacy means encouraging people to regularly stop and think about what they are looking at, and ask themselves: Why was this made? Why was this format chosen? Who made this and who made money from it? Who is the intended audience?

This is where librarians and journalists can be useful instructors, says Allison Butler, director of the Media Literacy Certificate Program at UMass Amherst.

“Librarians and journalists are both trained to ask questions. They’re trained to dig out information. They’re trained to provide support and resources for expanding people’s world views. It’s absolutely in line with media literacy,” Butler notes. “So, a collaboration with librarians and journalists? There’s superhero potential there.”

Beyond helping people identify reliable information sources, media literacy can help increase civic engagement by spurring people to action, according to Jonathan Anzalone, assistant director for the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University, NY.

“The aim is to try to empower people as individuals, as citizens...to be able to make informed decisions,” Anzalone says. “That requires being able to tell the difference between, say, journalism and advertising and propaganda. It means telling the difference between news reporting and opinion. It means telling the difference between good news reporting and bad news reporting.”

What do partnerships between libraries and news outlets look like in practice? Examples fall roughly into four categories: shared space, pop-ups, content creation, and programming. Each offers avenues for increasing media literacy in their communities.

EMBEDDED ADVANTAGE (top) Public radio station GBH has a satellite station at the downtown Boston Public Library where they host live radio shows and events; (bottom) Dallas Morning News employees attend Dallas Public Library’s Unity Concert on August 24, 2024 at J. Erik Jonsson Central Library. Pictured from left: Ashley Slayton, Paula Luna, Carmina Tiscareno, Jennifer Brancato, and Amy Hollyfield.

SHARED SPACE

One example of this arrangement can be found in Boston Public Library’s central branch, which has a small studio operated by the local public radio station, GBH. The space opened in 2016 and includes a stage where radio staff host live shows.

Sandra López Burke is the managing director of community and government relations at GBH, and she has been a point person for coordinating programming at the library studio. She says opening a workspace at the library was about putting listeners first.

“We want to make sure that this is a convening place, a fun place, an engaging place for people of all ages,” she says. “It’s really just making sure that the public can have access to the multiple things that we do here.”

The Cleveland Public Library (CPL) also has a space-sharing agreement with journalists at Signal, a community news outlet that trains “documenters”—locals who attend public meetings and take notes to ensure that information about local government remains accessible. Signal journalists use library buildings to work, research, and meet with potential documenters, according to CPL Executive Director and CEO Felton Thomas Jr.

Participating reporters “started to realize that the library was a good place for them to go and find out what was really happening in the community,” says Thomas. “Reporters started to ask our staff and our community about issues that they really wanted to write stories about.”

Thanks to Signal’s space-sharing agreement with CPL, members of the public are also able to get an inside look at how journalism is produced. Library visitors can talk to reporters in person and share their thoughts on community issues. In Cleveland, people also have the option to use library spaces to train as documenters and become part of the journalistic process. By seeing community journalism in action, people learn how to navigate local news sources—and reading local news is a huge step in increasing media literacy and promoting civic engagement.

POP-UPS

Like shared space agreements, pop-ups can offer the public a better understanding of, and an inside look at, local journalism.

In fall 2024 the Dallas Morning News sent a team of reporters to table in the lobbies of several Dallas Public Library (DPL) branches to talk to community members about the presidential election. Reporters spoke with people one-on-one and promoted a survey they used to gather information about what the public wanted to know about politics.

Dallas Morning News Audience Development Editor Ashley Slayton says her team was able to get more diverse survey respondents in local libraries. And the conversations reporters had with library patrons as part of this pop-up went beyond the November election.

“A lot of people see [libraries] as nonpartisan spaces. They definitely see them as places where you can obtain information. And so it felt like a very neutral ground,” Slayton says. “We were open to hearing more from people. If it wasn’t something that was going to be on the ballot, and they just wanted to talk about other things that were happening in their community, we were there to be an ear for that.”

PROGRAMMING

Staff at the Dallas Morning News also co-led a program in partnership with the library for several years that offers an excellent example of media literacy education.

From 2018 through 2020, a grant from the Knight Foundation funded the Storytellers Without Borders program, in which local reporters taught journalism skills to cohorts of teens at DPL. The program included individual and group lessons on journalistic ethics, how to find story ideas, and techniques for research.

The program eventually shuttered when grant funding ran out. For the years it ran, however, former DPL Director Jo Giudice says, it was a great way to engage young people in local news. And by teaching teens how to produce journalism themselves, the program fulfilled a key tenet of media literacy education: the ability to author your own content within the media landscape.

“We wanted to get teenagers back in the library. It’s not a demographic where we’re strong,” Giudice says. “Our focus was to open up the world of civic engagement to teens who weren’t paying attention about what’s going on at City Hall. Rules are being made, policy is being set, and it’s going to affect your future.”

CONTENT CREATION

The Kansas City Star has an ongoing content creation partnership with the Kansas City Public Library (KCPL), MO, in which the library’s Missouri Valley Special Collections department works with staff at the Star on a project called “What’s Your KCQ?” Residents can submit history questions, and then newspaper and library staff answer those questions in a written column.

Missouri Valley Special Collections Manager Jeremy Drouin says his staff often select questions that highlight unique archival material in the collection. When librarians write the columns, they work with Star staff on the editing process, which Drouin says has given his staff new writing skills.

In addition, content collaboration that takes community voices into account allows people to feel their voices are being heard. People who write in might see their questions answered in print by a reporter. Reading journalists’ or librarians’ approaches to answering these questions is a valuable tool in teaching media literacy by example. Seeing how a professional responded to a tricky inquiry might give people a better idea about how to approach such a question themselves.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST?

Despite the range of success stories, partnerships between libraries and news outlets are not without potential pitfalls.

Jessica Zurita, assistant to the director at the San Antonio Public Library, TX, would hesitate to provide space for a for-profit outlet, she says, since a key part of a library’s mission is to make resources available for free. Journalists, on the other hand, might not want to partner with a publicly funded institution when part of their job is to report on local governments and their money.

While librarians and journalists involved in existing partnerships acknowledge these concerns, they also say the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

Reporters “are information-seeking, and we’re information specialists. So it seems like a perfect marriage,” Giudice says. “Our goals are the same, really—elevating facts, and teaching people how to tell fact from fiction. Media literacy is big for both of us.”

CPL’s Thomas encourages librarians to think of journalists as allies, rather than holding them at arm’s length. “Many times, libraries are concerned that somebody is going to write a story [about them] that is negative,” he says. “They’re more afraid of having these news outlets in their building than they are of reaching out to them and finding ways that they can work together.”

But, he adds, “new news outlets” such as grassroots operations or nonprofits that aren’t built off of the old framework, need space. “They need access to technology,” he says. “As the library, if you can provide that, reporters will see all the positive things happening within your branch and in your community.”

There’s also the ever-present concern about who’s footing the bill. Most of the partnerships discussed above don’t involve a financial agreement And in some cases, librarians and journalists have made arrangements to make news accessible to the public while still considering newsrooms’ bottom line. In Kansas City, for example, library staff worked out a deal to post columns written by library staff both on the library blog, where they can be accessed for free, and in the local paper.

One way to make partnerships successful, offers Giudice, is to leave budgetary concerns out altogether.

“I think we have to set aside [funding] and really look at how this can help our community. So it has to be that real sort of true partnership,” she says. “This isn’t about buying another book or helping someone get their GED. This is more about really engaging the community in civics in a way they haven’t been.”

MEDIA AS A PUBLIC GOOD

There is no exact roadmap to follow to make a library/media partnership work—and every existing collaboration functions a little Differently.

But focusing on media literacy education is more important now than it ever has been. And collaborations between news outlets and libraries offer one path forward in providing that benefit to the public.

Jennie Rose Halperin, the executive director of the research and advocacy organization Library Futures, said bringing news outlets into public spaces like libraries is one way to make news coverage feel more tangible to the community.

“Fostering and supporting a really robust public media environment is crucial to building the kind of world that I think libraries want to see,” she says. “There’s an enormous misinformation and disinformation epidemic.... Walling off news from people is just going to make it worse.”

Dallas Morning News Assistant Managing Editor Tom Huang, a longtime proponent of partnering with the local library system, agrees.

“Librarians are some of the strongest, most innovative people around. And we really need more of them,” he says. “I’ve always said newsrooms can’t afford to be...closed off from the community. But that’s a lot of hard work. And since libraries have largely figured that out, why not partner with [them] to do that?”

Sarah Asch is a journalist based in Austin, TX, and is completing her master’s degree at the University of Texas School of Information.