The New York Times describes the fight against fake news as “a work in progress.” It’s particularly important work if we are to teach our children how to sort fact from fiction and find news and information they can trust.

Not that long ago, most people got their news from newspapers, newsmagazines, network TV and radio reports written by professional news writers and edited by professional news editors. Individuals in this line of work were often idealistic, committed to the philosophy that good government required a free and fair press, and that a well-informed public would be a well-informed electorate. We actually believed that journalists could help make the world a better place.

Newswriters who studied journalism were trained to gather and edit news in a timely and accurate manner. We sought multiple sources that were knowledgeable and reliable. We attributed relevant facts and opinions to the sources that provided them. We sought to present information in an objective manner, balancing opposing points-of-view. When reporters erred, our editors took pains to correct mistakes and set the record straight.

Today, this approach to disseminating news seems as quaint and anachronistic as the typewriters, Teletype machines, wired phones and newspaper clipping libraries we used back in the day.

Last year, the Pew Research Center estimated that more than 60 percent of American adults get news from Facebook and other social networking sites, up from 47 percent four years ago. I’m pleased to see that many fine newspapers, magazines and broadcast networks offer quality journalism on social media platforms. I like to think that the majority of adults in our community can distinguish between real news and the fictitious or false information called “fake news.”

But think about young people whose lives revolve around a multitude of platforms, blogs, posts and tweets. I don’t think they spend a lot of their time online consuming information from local, national or international news organizations.

Sad to say, most articles in the Blogosphere and tweets in the Twittersphere are unedited. There is no fact-checking. They often contain outrageous and unverifiable claims rooted in ignorance and bigotry. Some are patently false, designed to fool young people into clicking on something. Others are posted without regard to consequences simply to achieve the vaunted goal of “going viral.”

Hawaii’s teachers should take a cue from the Hawaiian phrase, Nana i ke kumu (Look to the source), and challenge students to question their online sources of news and information. I would urge middle school and high school teachers to begin by educating themselves in what journalists and educators call “news literacy.”

“News literacy teaches that all information is not created equal,” says Alan Miller, president and CEO of the News Literacy Project (NLP), a nonpartisan nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. Miller earned his M.A. from the University of Hawaii, with support from the East-West Center, and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize as an investigative reporter with The Los Angeles Times. He says the goal of NLP is to help young people “use the aspirational standards of quality journalism to determine what they should trust, share and act on.”

The NLP website, www.thenewsliteracyproject.org, offers lessons that teachers of English, history, social studies or journalism can drop into their curriculum. There’s a virtual classroom designed to show students in grades 8-12 how to navigate the digital realm using news literacy concepts.

As of last month, the project had reached 220,000 students across the country. There was only one state without schoolteachers using NLP techniques to foster news literacy — Hawaii.

Stu Glauberman worked as a journalist in Honolulu for many years.