Make the room participate.
Keynotes, workshops, breakouts, panels, podcasts, and professional learning about journalism, news literacy, artificial intelligence, verification, and the human urge to believe the first compelling thing we see.
National Press Club Journalism Institute
The feature captures the core speaking lesson: audiences learn best when they experience how an accurate-sounding claim can mislead before they are asked to analyze it.
How a journalism instructor is teaching his students about fact-checking and misinformation through dihydrogen monoxide
Read the feature“With news literacy, young people are able to use their rights and advocate for their interests more effectively. That is why I support Eric’s work.”
Mary Beth Tinker
Student free-expression advocate
No beige PowerPoints.
The audience should leave having made decisions, tested assumptions, argued with evidence, and experienced the exact cognitive traps we are talking about.
Dihydrogen Monoxide
A deliberately alarming presentation about a dangerous chemical becomes a live demonstration of framing, unfamiliar language, selective truth, missing context, and why technically accurate information can still mislead.
Run the WATER Check
Wait. Ask. Trace. Examine. Respond. A practical routine for deciding what a claim has actually earned before reacting, reposting, or repeating it.
AI Didn’t Invent the Problem
Generative AI changes the speed and scale of convincing misinformation, but many of the vulnerabilities it exploits are older than the internet.
The Newsroom Is a Democracy Lab
What student journalism teaches about sourcing, evidence, disagreement, ethics, public records, accountability, and the responsibility to publish something other people can trust.
The session changes with the room.
Educators, student journalists, school and district leaders, universities, journalism programs, civic groups, professional associations, podcasts, and general audiences all need different entry points. The underlying question stays the same: what deserves our confidence?
What it costs to bring this in.
Every session gets scoped to the room, but here's a starting range so budgeting isn't a guessing game.
$750–$1,500
One classroom visit, assembly, or 45–60 minute breakout.
$2,000–$3,500
Up to three hours: a workshop plus a faculty PD block.
$3,500–$6,000
Multiple sessions across a school or district, keynote plus breakouts.
$2,500–$5,000
45–60 minute keynote for a conference, association, or organization.
Virtual sessions run $500–$1,500. Travel and lodging are billed separately outside driving distance of West Palm Beach, FL. Rates flex for Title I schools, first-time bookers, and nonprofits doing news-literacy work on a shoestring, just ask.
Let them discover the lesson.
For conferences, schools, districts, universities, organizations, podcasts, and media appearances.
National News Literacy Conference
Eric Jourgensen is presenting “Dihydrogen Monoxide: The ‘Deadly Chemical’ That Exposes How Misinformation Works” on Oct. 9, 2026, at the News Literacy Project’s conference in Salt Lake City (Oct. 8–10).
View the organizer’s conference program · Read the full DHMO lesson · Explore the WATER classroom resources
Before the conference
- Town-Crier, Sept. 18, 2026: the classroom approach behind the conference session.
- The Journalism Salute, Episode 296, Sept. 22, 2026: with Nierra Coleman-Jones of the News Literacy Project.
- Teaching from the Headlines, Sept. 9 and 16, 2026: a two-part teacher interview.
Tell me about the room.
The more I know about who is in the seats, the less beige the session gets. Answer what you can. I read every one of these myself.
Need something to forward to a committee? Download the one-sheet.