O’ahu, Hawai’i. Photo by delfi de la Rua on Unsplash.

We are pleased as punch to announce that the model Media Literacy bill has been introduced by Sen. Mike Gabbard in Hawaii. MLN’s legislative efforts have stretched from coast to coast in the past few years, and now we’re hopping across the ocean to that tiny archipelago in the Pacific. This bill could help more than 180,000 island students gain media literacy life skills.

Sen. Gabbard recognized there was an urgent need for media literacy to support democracy, and reached out to us last year while preparing his legislative priorities for this session.

“Media Literacy Now is doing great work across the country in supporting passage of state laws to help young people become better digital citizens. I’m partnering with them on legislation to require our Hawai`i Department of Education to head up an advisory committee to come up with a plan to help our K-12 students become better educated in how to discern among the many sources of news, information, and persuasive messages they confront every day.” —Sen. Mike Gabbard

This introduction is particularly exciting because it demonstrates that the model bill we have developed can be customized to meet the diverse needs of any of the 50 states. And also perhaps because of the geographic reach of our movement that this action represents. Hawaii is so very far away from our humble origins along the banks of the Charles River in Massachusetts. At 5090 miles, Honolulu is the most distant US state capitol from Boston.