French news media have been awarded a World Young Reader Prize for their extraordinary, collective work in helping young people understand the Charlie Hebdo attacks and their implications, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) announced Monday (20 July).
"French society was traumatized by the horrific events of January 7th, especially the country's youth," said Aralynn McMane, Executive Director for youth engagement at WAN-IFRA. "France's news media did an exceptional job in helping young people deal with their trauma and fear and, critically, to understand the importance of freedom of expression. By doing so, French media demonstrated, both in words and action, the value of a free press to democratic society."
The French news media as a whole took the top award in the World Young Reader Prize "Teaching Freedom" category, and was aided by strong collaboration with the French Education Ministry's Centre for Liaison Between Teaching and Information Media (CLEMI), which changed the theme of the 2015 Week of the Press and Media in Schools to concentrate on freedom of expression.
Denmark's Kids' News, a newspaper for children, won a silver award in the category for similar treatment of the attacks.
The top World Young Reader Prize -- News Publisher of the Year -- went to Indonesia's Kompas Daily for its multimedia approach to reaching a young audience and helping them become more active in society. Through extensive experimentation with social media, Kompas provided young people with a quality platform so their voices could be heard, taught them the difference between professional journalism and other content, and did so in an entertaining way.
Other awards honored the full range of actions publishers can take to engage the young, starting with the key work of assuring this new generation understands and appreciates the role of journalism in guarding free expression.
The World Young Reader Prizes are part of WAN-IFRA's efforts to recognize, encourage and disseminate innovative ideas and thinking to help build stronger and vital news media. World Young Reader Prize winning strategies are celebrated and shared as they benefit not only the media companies and their young audiences but also society as a whole.
In addition to the World Young Reader News Publisher of the Year, the 2015 prizes were awarded in seven categories: teaching freedom, digital first, brand, editorial, enduring excellence, news in education and public service.
The awards are supported by SitesAlive, the news in education initiative linked to the Vendee Globe sailing race (news in education category), CCI, the Denmark-based editorial systems and innovation specialists (editorial category), and Eram Group, the multi-faceted business conglomerate operating in the Gulf region, India and Europe (public service category).
The prizes will be awarded in a ceremony on 3 September in Mumbai, India, during the WAN-IFRA India conference that will include a session on strategies for youth engagement.
