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Our information system has broken truth and our social fabric. Older people see the costs everywhere: elections, public health, climate, public discourse. Young people think this is all a republic can be.
The path forward has many parts. AverPoint is tackling one: software that makes media literacy education more effective.
We help students improve their reading, writing, and thinking in today's digital reality.
Media literacy is a cognitive practice, bigger than citations and fact-checks.
James Potter at UC Santa Barbara defines cognitive media literacy as autonomy over media consumption and meaning construction. A media-literate person chooses their information diet consciously, and accurately extracts meaning from media messages.
It's the interaction of:
Most media literacy programs emphasize skills. AverPoint strengthens all three.
A theory is not enough. How do you learn it?
In today’s digital world, it has to be practiced, measured, and made into a habit.
AverPoint turns media literacy into a scaffolded weekly journey. Students get progressively harder goals, continuous feedback, and the chance to build habits that stick.
We apply these learning techniques:
A hard process becomes a habit.
Every school relationship starts with a one-semester pilot in one to three classrooms.
Before the pilot. We set goals with the teacher and administration, complete legal and technical reviews, and use their existing syllabus to configure their AverPoint course. We run a training session with participating teachers and teaching assistants. We provide a one-page handout and a slide deck for students.
During the pilot. We spend a few weeks helping students start at their own pace. We send students weekly reading goals on Sunday. They read, meet their goals, and rise levels. We nudge students who fall behind. Every week, we send a report summarizing student progress, top performers, and laggards.
At the end. We sit down with teachers to discuss what's working and what needs to change. We usually then expand the program from pure reading to include research and writing.
AverPoint's founder got to media literacy after spending a decade in the clean energy industry. The industry had profitable technologies, job-creating companies, and investors knocking on the door. Success would be a triple win for national security, the economy, and the planet. But disinformation, from both friends and foes, won the day.
He spent some time learning about ways to tackle disinformation and gravitated to media literacy. Because it taught students how to think, not what to think. Before writing code, he talked to about 60 people across the political spectrum. Many described the information crisis as a top problem. Most wanted the same thing: ideas that show their evidence, open themselves to questions, accept expert review, and update when presented with new information.
In 2022, teachers started asking if they could use AverPoint's reading features in class. In 2023, Jim Potter at UC Santa Barbara helped shape the product's cognitive media literacy approach. In 2024, the Financial Times piloted a Summer News Challenge, and introduced us to many of the world's finest schools. In 2025, AverPoint launched our first large courses at several well-known universities. In 2026, we received our first contracts from US public school districts.
Shouvik Banerjee, AverPoint's founder, wanted a new model for trust built from the ground up. People don't just want information. They want a way to trust information.
A 20th-century brand doesn't automatically earn that trust. Neither do platform fact-checks or editor-mediated truth, even when they're right. In the vacuum, something's filling the gap. People trust the voices that confirm their bias and grab their attention. Worse, they trust voices that prey on their fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
But this can't be it.
Imagine a public square where voices earn trust by showing their evidence, exposing themselves to review, and updating their positions. Imagine this is grassroots, verified, and at internet speed.
This is possible. But it depends on a media-literate audience. It depends on readers placing trust in voices that provide evidence, expose themselves to questions, and update their positions. It depends on readers regaining faith in informed, educated debate as the lifeblood of a free republic.
The classroom is where it starts.
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