News that’s fit for kids
Australia’s first newspaper for children has been running for a year — what took us so long?
As Crinkling News nears its first birthday, I am bruised from all those metaphorical pats on the head.
When you create a newspaper for kids it has to be cute. Sweet. Gorgeous. So optimistic.
Thank you for the supercilious applause. It is appreciated. But you’ve got it all wrong.
While your employer is considering the next redundancy round, we’re looking for more experienced journalists.
As you watch print newspaper circulation dive, we celebrate its rise.
Many of your readers and viewers and listeners are becoming ever more disenchanted with the news meeja and burying themselves in partisan blogs and tweets; ours seek it out as a bastion of what is true and trustworthy.
The most taxing question I grapple with on a week-to-week basis is this: Why did it take Australia so long to realise our children might want some real news too?
We neglected them. And then they became adults so ill-informed about how good journalism was made that many didn’t realise it required skill and contacts and hard work and the ability to weigh different sides of a debate and reach considered conclusions.
How were these pre-adults meant to fare when the internet offered them free fake news and dodgy blogs? How could they distinguish between journalist and commentator when nobody had ever told them, in their most formative years, there was a difference?
The creation of Australia’s only national newspaper for kids was a lightbulb moment for me. As a veteran of newspaper journalism, I thought it looked like a cool idea. Most European and Asian kids have their own newspapers (in fact, there are usually many to choose from). Why not us?
But over the past 12 months I have realised it was not just a market gap waiting to be filled. It is an essential part of democracy, of the place of the Fourth Estate in our society. Our readers devour their weekly newspaper in a way you might envy. They talk about the stories in the classroom, over the dinner and breakfast table, with their siblings and friends and teachers.
Without knowing it, they are also learning the difference between real news and fake news. They are learning that facts have credible sources, that photographs have legitimate credits and captions, that there are multiple views on any one topic, that advertisements are different from editorial, and the fact that someone is powerful does not mean they are right.
The marketing and advertising world has known for decades how crucial kids are to decision-making. I’m not sure how or why we in the news media ignored them for so long.
Of course, there have been half-hearted attempts to include the kiddies over the years, such as a single page in the weekend paper dedicated to comics and star bursts. If you have children — or even happen to know one or two — you’ll be able to picture the disgusted roll of the eyes at such transparent attempts to broaden advertising opportunities.
With all due credit to Behind the News over at the ABC, it is hard being the first. I have been asked whether we even pay our reporters (we do, handsomely), who we are actually writing for (our readers, the children), and why print when all our readers have iPads (because they actually like printed newspapers!)
I’m no mummy blogger or angsty advocate for the superiority of child wisdom, but we make a point of valuing our readers. We don’t talk down to them; we don’t treat them like morons. But we do assume limited knowledge so we explain the background and the context. You would be surprised at the number of adults who read and appreciate Crinkling News just for the background explanations.
Kids’ news is not the answer to the industry’s problems, obviously. But it is a part of how we can reimagine and reinvigorate the place of credible news in our society. A child consumer of quality news will not necessarily go on to become a subscriber to The Australian, or an avid 7.30 viewer, or 60 Minutes addict.
But they will be able to spot the difference between quality news and rubbish.
Saffron Howden is the editor of Crinkling News, the only national newspaper for young Australians. crinklingnews.com.au.
This piece is from Issue 88 (April/May 2017) of the Walkley Magazine.
