(Cross posted at One America.)

Today, Fiona started her final year of nursery school. Yesterday, Ned Lamont unveiled his education plan, and across the blogs, there are discussions about media education issues, so I thought this would be a good time to talk a bit about media education.

Over on MyLeftNutmeg, CTBlogger writes about how a local paper has started covering an important local story because of what was being written in blogs. On MyDD, Jerome Armstrong writes about critiquing political advertisements. Meanwhile, Act for Change is encouraging people to contact ABC about their planned ‘docudrama’ about 9/11 which Editor and Publisher reports, “at least two real-life figures portrayed in the movie, Richard Clarke and Sandy Berger, have raised factual objections.”

There is a famous quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, "An informed citizenry is the bulwark of a democracy". To have a better-informed citizenry, we need better journalism and people who better understand the media. That is why the Citizen Journalism efforts, such as those at the One America Committee blog are so important.

For those who have a strong interest in media education, I want to recommend the Action Coalition on Media Education conference that will be happening Oct 6-8 in Burlington, VT. Jerome Armstrong will be speaking there. I will be on a panel, and a lot of other prominent media educators and citizen/activists will be speaking. I hope some of you will be able to attend.