We aim to bring together news media and the young for the benefit of both through recognition, action and resources in ways that reinforce the role of rigorous journalism in a democracy.
Founded in 2018, we are a fully volunteer organization with nonprofit status in France and the United States.
EndorsING the basics
FOR Media Literacy...
We and more than two dozen other European organizations think students should learn about the necessary role of journalism in a democracy as part of their core media literacy training.
To help accomplish this, we are jointly suggesting adding a section in the draft Checklist for European Media Literacy Standards to encourage such teaching.
You or your organization can join the quest.
... and Getting started in doing that lesson
Global Youth & News Media Prize educator laureate Janis Schachter explains in just over two minutes how to help students discover some of the journalists who risk all to get at truth that the powerful would rather the rest of us didn't know, including about the destruction of the environment.
It makes for a good activity in the run-up to World Press Freedom Day on 3 May.
WE NEED YOUR HELP
We want to find out the best ways to measure the impact on adolescents of getting a first experience in journalistic coaching.
We're donating time to help two nonprofits find good ways to measure the impact on a teenager of a first experience in getting coached to do journalism.
We'd love to know what you know, especially about the specifics of any assessment tools you use.
We're especially interested in any counter-cynicism measures: acquiring an appreciation of the role of journalism itself as a support of democracy while at the same time also learning the media literacy skills to check all content and sources.
Please give a shout in the contact form below if you can recommend a resource, a measurement tool or a contact.
Thinking AHEAD
You might want to start thinking about the possibility that what you do could win a Global Youth & News Media Prize next year (2025).
Past awards have focused on:
JOURNALISM • Work that supports the young
NEWS/MEDIA LITERACY • Filling key gaps in teaching
THE PLANET - Providing important hope and intelligence
Check out past laureates in this every-other-year awards programme get the general idea of our focus.
And please get in touch via the info form at the bottom of the page if you have questions or suggestions.
Editors of news for children step up once again to help them cope with news they can't avoid
THE SOLUTION CALLS FOR MORE
THAN SOLID JOURNALISM
DETAILS HERE
We are celebrating those who
teach the "why" of press freedom
Check out the ways seven champion educators, news media and NGOS are ensuring that students in primary and secondary school learn about the crucial role of journalism and about the dangers faced by some who do that job. Next edition of this award: 2025.
MEET THE LAUREATES!
You can use our 2-minute video
of children's artful demands
about the climate.
Editors of news for children around the world asked their young audiences – those who will be most affected by climate change – to suggest to decision makers the most important first step in saving the planet. Show the resulting video at your climate event! DETAILS HERE
This initiative is a contribution to The Writing's on the Wall project.
WHAT ELSE WE've been up to LATELY
LESSONS FROM DOING NEWS
FOR THE YOUNGeST AUDIENCES
WEBINAR #1
Editors targeting grownups can learn a lot from these pros at kids' news
We partnered with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) for a session in which star editors of news for children explained how they build trust through audience engagement and solutions journalism strategies that could also work in serving adults.• DETAILS HERE
WEBINAR #2
Une deuxième webinaire (en français) mettait l'accent sur comment traiter pour enfants l'actualité de crise.
"[Through their art], my students both from Poland and Ukraine showed that they are the rebels of tomorrow and that it is worth fighting for peace."
-- Teacher Ewa Waworczny
EDITORS, TEAchers UNITE IN GLOBAL ART PROJECT
FOR CHILDREN SHAKEN
BY UKRAINE INVASION
Inspired by Kleine Kinderzeitung of Austria, editors from eight other countries invited children to submit art that wishes peace and love for the hundreds of thousands of children in Ukraine.
And for News-O-Matic (USA), this has been business as usual, as editor Russ Kahn reports.
Peace Day in September 2022 saw children return to the project to show they had not forgotten Ukraine.
And people in countries where Ukrainian children have found a safe haven are still helping them join the project and create a keepsake (instructions in 11 languages).
THE PROJECT DETAILS
DRAWING BORDERS to DOWNLOAD
A LINK FOR SHARING THE ART QUICKLY
HOW TO HELP REFUGEE CHILDREN JOIN Click here to access instructions in Deutsch, Eesti, English, Español, Français, Italia, Nederlands, Polski, Português, Українською, Русском.
LATEST COVERAGE
Helping with the scary news
Global Youth & News Media director Aralynn McMane explores how editors around the world are helping children understand and cope with the news as Russia invades Ukraine in this piece for News Decoder, the nonprofit educational news service. Now, new horrors in the Middle East call for a renewal of those initiatives.
CLICK HERE FOR THE updates
DETAILS OF OUR GLOBAL #KidsDrawPeace4Ukraine PROJECT.
ART: Courtesy of News-O-Matic (USA)/by reader Derrin
COMING SOON
We'll be working with anglophone teenagers from Southwest France who want to learn how to do a journalistic interview in English.
OUR OVERALL ACTION AREAS
THE RESOURCES
To reinforce teaching about what UNESCO terms Media and Information Literacy we are curating and constantly updating sets of background, briefings and lesson plans for explaining why journalism is a good thing for a society to have and what threats the people who do that job too often face.
THE PRIZE
The Global Youth & News Media Prize honors organizations that innovate as they strengthen engagement between news media and young people while reinforcing the role of journalism in society. In short, they celebrate news media that serve, support and both attract and learn from young audiences.
Awards recognize excellence in journalism and news/media literacy.
SEE BELOW FOR MORE ABOUT PAST LAUREATES
SOME RECENT AWARDS
12 newsrooms won The Journalism Award category for their 2020-2021 coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic for children.
Five organizations received gold level awards, with another seven receiving silver level awards.
DETAILS HERE
Educators from Boliva, the USA and Nigeria honored in 2021 for teaching the "why" of press freedom
The designation constituted the year's News/Media Literacy Award category in memory of Scott Schurz and honored excellence in assuring students understand the need for journalism and the dangers to those who practice it. In 2023, the award will expand to include news media.
DETAILS about the LAUREATES
El Surtidor of Paraguay won The Planet Award category for 2019.
Founders Alejandro Valdez, director, and Jazmin Acuña, editor, (pictured at left) accepted the award at the Eurasian Media Forum, the partner for this award.
Also honored were Dainik Jagran of India and the Young Reporters for the Environment, based in Denmark.
DETAILS HERE
VIDEO HERE
PHOTO: EAMF.ORG COMMITTEE
The Student View of the United Kingdom received the top honour in 2019 News/Media Literacy Award category.
Other laureates were the Top Story journalism student investigative reporting reality show (Kenya), the News Literacy Project's virtual Checkology classroom (USA) and the Troll Factory simulation from Finland's public broadcaster, YLE. The awards were presented in Paris at NewsXchange.
DETAILS HERE
The "Since Parkland" project in the United States received the 2019 Journalism Award category.
Other laureates were The Children's Radio Foundation (South Africa), Quds News Network (Palestine) and News Network from the Danish Broadcasting Corp (Denmark.) The awards were presented in Paris at NewsXchange.
DETAILS HERE
THE INAUGURAL AWARD
The Guardian US and the Eagle Eye student newsmagazine of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland, USA) were the first Global Youth & News Media Prize laureates, receiving an honorary award for their joint live coverage in March 2018 of the March for Our Lives demonstration in Washington D.C. to promote gun control.
The citation read: “The Guardian and the student journalism staff of The Eagle Eye at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School worked jointly to keep young voices front and center in the live coverage of the March for Our Lives demonstration for The Guardian US by the student journalists of The Eagle Eye. This initiative provides a stunning example of a student takeover of a trusted news source that offers solid lessons for other newsrooms to dare to do something similar.”
The honorary award marked the launch of the global prize and was presented 14 November 2018 at NewsXchange, the European Broadcasting Union's premier conference that attracts top news executives from all over the world. It was held in Edinburgh and hosted by BBC News and BBC Scotland.
DETAILS HERE
THE ProjecTS
We amplify youth journalism through its World Teenage Reporting Projects and support journalism for children, most recently through the #HowToSaveOurPlanetStep1 global project. We are open to working with new partners to add to expand that portfolio.
A continuing initiative, #KidsDrawPeace4Ukraine, was inspired by the work of several editors of news for children and invites that constituency worldwide to create and post artistic message of hope and peace for Ukraine.
Our main project is a continuing World Teenage Reporting Project aims to further news media work that serves, supports and both attracts and learns from young audiences by amplifying the work of teenage journalists in covering the champions among that generation and also those adult sthey deem worthy.
The first World Teenage Reporting Project > COVID-19 saw teenage journalists in 19 countries around the world produce more than 60 stories about how their peers were helping during the chaotic and terrifying early months pandemic.
The second edition was The Tolerance Profile Challenge, launched on the United Nations International Day for Tolerance in November 2020 and spanning Human Rights Month in December. It featured profiles of champions in the quest to get along with stories showcased on the International Day of Education. It will continue into 2022.
Our main media partner is News Decoder, a global educational news service for young people. Founder Nelson Graves noted, "This activity fits our mission perfectly by helping news media amplify teenage voices about the positive role youth can play in a major, global phenomenon."
Partners & SUPPORTERS
Council of Europe North-South Centre promotes an active global citizenship among governments, parliaments, local & regional authorities and civil society by raising awareness of global interdependence through intercultural dialogue and global education.
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Erasmus + is the European Union's programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe.
World News Day (28 September) focuses on a global campaign to display support for journalists and their audiences, who use facts and understanding to help make the world a better place. In 2022, the campaign concentrated #JournalismMatters.
Global Media and Information Literacy Week and World Press Freedom Day represent two UNESCO initiatives that align particularly well with our objectives, and we are delighted to actively support them with both publicity and participation. We have also done actions in support of several commemorative days designated by the United Nations: International Day for Tolerance, Human Rights Month, the International Day of Education and the International Day of Peace
Schurz Communications, WAN-IFRA Press Freedom and IAPA/SIP (Interamerican Press Association/Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa) joined us in 2021 to launch the inaugural Press Freedom Teacher Award, a part of the News/Media Literacy category of the Global Youth & News Media Prize. The first awards were given in memory of Scott C. Schurz (1936-2021) , a global leader in promoting press freedom activism and actions for youth among publishers. Since then, we have expanded award as a Press Freedom Teaching Award to also recognize such work by news media organizations. We now honor and amplify the cases of threatened journalists who are chosen by students in the previous laureates' classes.
PRESS FREEDOM
We are proud members of these global networks:
The Learning Planet Institute, based in France, which promotes an educational revolution to surmount the challenges of our rapidly changing and increasingly complex world.
HundrED, based in Finland, which identifies, amplifies and helps implement in new places educational innovations that have impact and the potential to grow.
Anna Lindh Foundation, based in Egypt, which brings together the very diverse civil society organizations involved in the promotion of intercultural dialogue across the Euro-Mediterranean region.
FOUNDING SUPPORTERS
News-Decoder, the initiative of the French-based non-profit Nouvelles Decouvertes that provides secondary and university students with a news service and the opportunity for borderless, face-to-face discussions about important matters of the day.
The Google News Initiative, which works with the news industry to help journalism thrive in the digital age.
The European Journalism Centre, an international non-profit headquartered in The Netherlands that connects journalists with new ideas, skills and people
In addition, we greatly apreciate an array of generous people who prefer to remain anonymous and who have helped us both financially and morally when we have needed it most. You know who you are.
Image by CLICKR FREE VECTOR IMAGES by from PIXABAY
Finally, we encourage you to join us in support ing Ukraine's Voices of Children Foundation , which does art therapy and much more, and Media City Bergen's Anne Jacobsen Memorial Award, named after a longtime advocate of news media youth actions.
