India is a country of champions when it comes to news media initiatives aimed at attracting young readers, which has earned it the designation as WAN-IFRA World Young Reader Country of the Year for 2013.
Entries from several titles prompted the WAN-IFRA jury to make the award: Malayala Manorama, The Times of India, The Telegraph, Mathrubhumi, Dainik Bhaskar newspapers, i-next, The Hindu and Ebela.
This is only the second time that a country has been so honoured in the annual awards to news publishers that have found innovative ways to attract young people to the news. The previous such award went to Brazil in 2005.
"Indian news publishers continue to make clear their commitment to youth on all possible fronts by being right there every time there is a 'first' in a person's life," said Aralynn McMane, Executive Director for Youth Engagement and News Literacy at the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).
The award will be presented at the WAN-IFRA Youth Engagement Summit set for 2 to 4 December in Warsaw, Poland.
In addition, 21 titles from 14 countries were honoured, including these top winners in other categories:
Editorial: Avisa Nordland (Amedia), Norway, for Engagement Guaranteed, which designated 60 young readers as "editors" to develop the newspaper on all platforms and to develop a new pricing structure. The project will be the subject of a presentation at the International Newsroom Summit, to be held 8 and 9 October in Berlin.
Enduring Excellence: The New York Times, for its Learning Network and The Guardian (United Kingdom) for the Guardian Education Centre. This award was supported by the American Press Institute and Schurz Communications.
Helping with Health: A Gazeta, Brazil, for Healthy Life schools project, which got classes to focus on good eating and successfully push schools to change how they fed students.
Public Service: Nordwest Zeitung, Germany, for Students to the Ballot, which took its student population seriously by holding a mock election, complete with special with ballot boxes and massive coverage about the process and results.
Learning with the News: The Straits Times, Singapore, for 48 Values from the News programme, which used news in fresh ways in character education.
SoLoMo (Social Local Mobile): De Stentor, Netherlands, for MijnZ, which used journalism students to create and test a new digital service for local youth.
Brand: Schwäbische Post and Gmünder Tagespost (SDZ-Medien), Germany, for Job coaching in schools", which held mock job interviews carried out live for secondary student audiences by personnel managers from the company sponsoring the action, then created sponsored follow-up content.
