The New Mexico Media Literacy Project, the largest and most successful independent, activist media literacy project in the United States, cultivates critical thinking and activism in our media culture to build healthy and just communities. Founded by veteran newscaster Hugh Downs and his daughter Diedre Downs in 1993, NMMLP is an outreach project of Albuquerque Academy, a private 6-12 school that provides in-kind support and fiscal agency to the Project. In order to preserve our independence, NMMLP is one of the few media literacy organizations that accepts no funding from the media industry.
NMMLP staff members deliver multimedia presentations at conferences, workshops and classrooms across the country and abroad. Our four-day Catalyst Institutes have empowered over 1,000 people to be advocates and activists for a media literate society. We produce activist guides and educational materials, including CD-ROMs and videos, on a variety of media literacy topics. Our media literacy curricula are used across the nation in hundreds of schools and community organizations, and several states are actively trying to replicate the NMMLP model of activist-oriented, bottom-up media literacy growth.