When Professor Joe Alicastro takes the stage to talk about media literacy at Wilton Library next Wednesday evening, Feb. 4, he won’t be speaking as an academic delivering theory from a distance.
He’ll be speaking as someone who has spent decades inside newsrooms — and who believes the public is now facing an information crisis unlike anything before.
“Media literacy is, first of all, recognizing all media that you get information from,” Alicastro said. “Then recognizing if the source of the information you’re getting is reliable or not.”
Alicastro, a longtime NBC News producer turned professor at Sacred Heart University, will be giving a presentation at the library focused on how people can better evaluate what they see, hear and share — especially in an era shaped by echo chambers, misinformation and artificial intelligence.
Alicastro spent much of his career at NBC News, beginning in 1979 and working his way up from entry-level to some of the most high-profile roles in broadcast journalism.
He worked with legendary anchors, including David Brinkley and John Chancellor, and later served as Rome bureau chief during the collapse of Eastern European communism. Eventually, after years covering breaking news and political events abroad and at home, he accepted a buyout and transitioned into teaching.
“I knew I was starting to spend a lot of time mentoring young people,” he said. “I figured, well, someday I’ll teach. I just didn’t think it was that day.”
Alicastro said his work with college students made something immediately clear: by the time many young adults arrive in higher education, they’re already unprepared to evaluate the media surrounding them.
“I get those students when they’re college… and at that stage in their education, they are media illiterate,” he said.
That’s why he believes media literacy needs to be taught as early as kindergarten — and reinforced through every grade level.
“I advocated… for K through 12 media literacy across the board as part of the core curriculum,” he said. “It should begin as early as K.”
Echo Chambers and the Fragmenting of Democracy
Alicastro also connected media literacy to a much larger issue: polarization in American life.
“There’s a direct connection between media literacy, information, journalism and democracy,” he said.
He pointed to the way today’s media landscape increasingly reinforces narrow viewpoints.
“Tucker Carlson… had the most popular show on cable news,” he said. “Average audience was about three million a night… Now he has a YouTube channel, and he gets seven million a night watching his show.”
“And that can only lead to more polarization,” Alicastro said. “Now we’re really cutting the pie into really narrow slices of point of view.”
Alicastro said misinformation is no longer limited to biased commentary or distorted framing — it’s becoming technologically manufactured.
“The problem is going to be that it’s all accelerating with AI,” he said. “Twenty percent of videos are what are called AI slop on YouTube, which are created by AI.”
During his Wilton Library presentation, Alicastro plans to show just how quickly AI-generated video can be produced.
“One of the slides that I show is a very short animation of a bear playing the guitar on the moon,” he said. “I made that in exactly two minutes… and it boggles my mind.”
What Media Literacy Actually Requires
So what should people do to evaluate what they’re getting from the media?
Media literacy, Alicastro said, starts with basic questions:
“Recognize where the message… is coming from,” he said. “Does it have a point of view? Can it be interpreted in more than one way?”
He encourages fact-checking and comparison across sources.
“If you see something… fact check it,” he said. “Find another source.”
He also recommends using tools like bias charts — and being honest about what we consume.
“What media do you consume right now?” he asked. “Look at a media bias chart and see where that media falls on it.”
But he acknowledged the obstacle is effort.
“People are busy. That takes a lot of effort,” he said. “But my answer to that is… Can’t you just spend a little bit of time determining whether or not that information is reliable?”
There’s another tool he suggested news consumers use — healthy skepticism.
“If we raise them right… and get them to be skeptical, not cynical, but skeptical, that’s maybe a first step,” he said. “Be skeptical of all information that you’re being handed. If you’re skeptical, you’ll look to see if it’s real, if it’s responsible, if it’s reliable.”
Alicastro also urged readers to pay closer attention to whether they’re consuming reporting or opinion — and to understand the difference. While he said both have value, he stressed that news consumers need to recognize when they’re hearing commentary rather than facts.
“When it comes to news, when it comes to information — who, what, where, when, why and how — that’s different,” he said. He recalled sitting at the assignment desk at NBC and calling reporters for an update. “If they began with, ‘Well, I think,’ I would say, ‘I don’t give a damn what you think. What can you report?’”
For Alicastro, it’s a simple tool for audiences too.
“That’s another problem right now, too many media consumers are only getting their information from the opinion side and not from the reporting side,” he said.“If everything you’re hearing begins with the sentence ‘I think,’ you’re getting opinion. So now find some source that is just reporting on that issue.”
Local Journalism Still Matters — Especially Here
Alicastro emphasized the importance of community journalism, noting that local newspapers have been shutting down nationwide.
“We know that community newspapers are an absolute necessity,” he said.
But the financial pressures on local media are immense.
“Print costs are so incredibly expensive,” he said, adding that “the online model is the only way that they’re going to survive.”
He praised GOOD Morning Wilton as an example of a vital local resource.
“Local recommendations?” he said, then smiled: “Read GOOD Morning Wilton.”
He also underscored why local coverage matters in the first place.
“You are their representative in the room,” Alicastro said. “When the budgets are being discussed… if you’re not there… then they’ll [only] find out when their new property taxes happen.”
Visit the Wilton Library website to register in advance for the event.