Media Literacy and the Democratic Dividend

The win-win in partnerships with news media.

www.wan-press.org

• Aralynn McMane, Director, Young Readership Development, amcmane@wan.asso.fr

• The World Association of Newspapers (Paris) represents 18000 newspapers worldwide through national associations and company members.

World Young Reader PrizeNamibia • PUBLIC SERVICE

WHY:

The paper used excess newsprint to The paper used excess newsprint to produce one million “scrapbooks” of produce one million “scrapbooks” of blank pages for writing and drawing, blank pages for writing and drawing, and partnered with a local grocery store and partnered with a local grocery store to distribute them to schools in rural and to distribute them to schools in rural and disadvantaged areas around the disadvantaged areas around the

country.country.

Republikein

World Young Reader Prize: South Africa • PUBLIC SERVICE

WHY:The Sunday Times of South Africa won the 1999 World Young Reader Prize for helping to fill the country’s need for quality school materials. The four-page weekly supplement in the Sunday Times provides story books, exercises, maps and a wide range of activities to attract and instruct the young. The materials have attracted strong support from teachers, sponsors and readers.

Sunday Times

World Young Reader Prize: South Africa • EDITORIAL STRATEGY

WHY:This 9 000 circulation weekly tied with The Irish Times for its weekly science supplement designed to increase literacy and numerical skills. Though a small weekly paper with an average 9 000 circulation, the Mirror increased distrubution by placing all the materials on its web site for use, without cost, by anyone who wanted it. The materials can be found at: http://www.zoutnet.co.za

Limpopo Mirror

The newspaper as your ally

• Publishers need to engage new readers• Strategies in place – no need to invent• Multi-platform• Doing journalism• Cheapest resource – the newspaper itself• The missing link: teaching freedom

Children who use newspapers in class know more of the

answers.

…. and are more likely than those who don’t to develop

civic values.

SPOT THE NEXT PRESIDENT

NIE Using the adult newspaper in the classroom

• Newspapers and newspaper associations create youth reporters for a day, for a week for a year.

• Research links this work with development of democratic values

Journalism & the YoungJUST DO IT

Doing journalism for real – with the pros.

MALIUsing the newspaper in class.

LIBERIAUsing the newspaper in class.

GHANA

Media in Education Trust – Ghana• Begun with help of MIET South Africa• Six basic teacher guides• Tested World Newspaper Reading Passport

HELPING PARENTSTEACH THEIR CHILDRENA newspaperinsert and online forum funded by companies.

VOTINGA newspaperinsert and online forum funded by companies.

What’s missing?

• Study: media literacy = critical thinking but also cynicism about freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

• WAN is helping UNESCO work on a toolkit that will help teachers add that “missing piece”

Journalists get killed

www.worldpressfreedomday.org

More than 1,000 teen-age participants in the European Journalist for a Day programme, led by Vers l'Avenir of Belgium, joined a successful global effort to liberate the editor Pius Njawe from prison in Cameroon.

Joining the fight

www.worldpressfreedomday.org

www.wan-press.org

• Aralynn McMane, Director, Young Readership Development, amcmane@wan.asso.fr

• The World Association of Newspapers (Paris) represents 18000 newspapers worldwide through national associations and company members.

PANELISTS

• South Africa: The School Newspaper Project

Gail January & Joseph Makuwa

• Ghana & Liberia: Newspapers in Education

Solomon Ofori