Let’s Agree to Disagree

Nolan Higdon is a lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, Santa Cruz. Higdon's areas of concentration include digital culture, news media history, and critical media literacy. Higdon is a founding member of the Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas. He sits on the boards of the Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME) and Northwest Alliance For Alternative Media And Education. His most recent publications include The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education (2020) and The Podcaster's Dilemma: Decolonizing Podcasters in the Era of Surveillance Capitalism (2021). He is a longtime contributor to Project Censored's annual book, Censored. In addition, he has been a contributor to Truthout and Counter-Punch; and a source of expertise for numerous news outlets including The New York Times, CNBC, and San Francisco Chronicle. Mickey Huff is the director of Project Censored and president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation. To date, he has co-edited 13 editions of the Project’s yearbook, including most recently Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2022, with Andy Lee Roth. He is also co-author, with Nolan Higdon, of United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (and what we can do about it) (2019). Huff received the Beverly Kees Educator Award as part of the 2019 James Madison Freedom of Information Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California. He is professor of social science, history, and journalism at Diablo Valley College, where he co-chairs the history program and is chair of the Journalism Department. Huff is executive producer and host of The Project Censored Show, a weekly syndicated public affairs program that airs across the U.S. on Pacifica Radio. Learn more at projectcensored.org.

Introduction: Why Should We Agree to Disagree?

Part I

Communication

1. Create Constructive Dialogue

2. Reflect on Communication Practices and Censorship

Part II

Critical Thinking

3. Inquire: Be A Critical Thinker

4. Test Theory and Spot Ideology

Part III

Critical Media Literacy

5. Investigate and Evaluate Mass Media

6. Critiquing Content: "Fake News" and Ethical Journalism

7. Assess and Analyze Digital Media Use and Abuse

Part IV

Lead by Example: Democracy is Not a Spectator Sport

8. Conclusion