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| The NAA Foundation focuses on Newspaper In Education, newspaper youth content, scholastic journalism and diversity. In this blog, you'll learn about products, programs and resources that emphasize the use of newspapers and other media by young people. You'll also learn about programs and activities that can help news media companies transform their cultures in order to grow business and increase readership and audience. |
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April 2009 - Posts
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The social networking site Facebook may be turning into a haven for collegiate journalism.
As previously noted in an April 1 Foundation blog post, the University of Minnesota's Minnesota Daily has launched a Facebook application. Now, an entrepreneurial journalism class at the University of Washington has teamed with news aggregator NewsCloud to create In:Site, a Facebook news application, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
In:Site, run by 20 students who report and edit the news, stresses interactivity and reader feedback. Their goal is to produce at least two articles a week, with an emphasis on arts and culture.
Seattle-based NewsCloud also helped to produce Minnesota Daily and Hot Dish, an environmental news hub.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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The New York Times Learning Network offers a variety of classroom-friendly materials, including crossword puzzles and news articles.
One resource, News Snapshot, is aimed at students in grades three through five. It combines the newspaper's photography with questions meant to figure out the essentials of a news story: who, what, when, where, why and how?
News Snapshot features printable pages for students and teachers, suggests different activities and boasts an archive of past Snapshots dating back to 1999.
Among this week's News Snapshot topics have been newspapers in the 1800s, the new Disney film "Earth" and British singing sensation Susan Boyle.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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The World Association of Newspapers is offering free materials for World Press Freedom Day on May 3.
World Press Freedom Day recognizes journalists who put themselves in harm's way in order to tell their stories. Much of this risk involves restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
The WAN Web site features links to handouts, activities, exercises, advertisements and pictures, while the World Press Freedom Day site gives news media outlets the opportunity to share their own materials -- interviews, advertisements, sidebars, graphics and cartoons.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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Starting April 20, students in Daytona Beach, Fla., will set sail along the Intracoastal Waterway and the St. Johns River, visiting Jacksonville and some Florida islands along the way.
The trip is part of "Houseboating Through History," a program set up by the NIE program at The News-Journal and a local television station. As part of the local history-centered program, students must find clues from the story, the newspaper, the TV station and the Internet.
Read more about it here.
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The World Association of Newspapers seeks entries for its World Young Reader Prize competition.
The contest calls for newspapers to submit comprehensive PowerPoint presentations detailing youth readership projects produced within two years of the entry deadlines. There are six categories: editorial, NIE, public service, brand, press freedom and making the news.
Submissions in the new press freedom category, developed to honor newspapers around the world celebrating and recognizing freedom of the press, are due April 15. The award winner will be announced on May 3, World Press Freedom Day. Also, the award winner will be recognized at the 8th World Young Reader Conference, scheduled for Sept. 27-30 in Prague, Czech Republic.
Submissions for the other categories are due June 5.
PowerPoint presentations for all categories must be divided into four sections:
1. Description of the program: what you did and why
2. Development: financing and partners
3. Marketing: how you promoted it
4. Evaluation and results
More details are available on the WAN Web site.
Note: If you entered the NAA Foundation Young Reader Awards contest, then you already have a PowerPoint to use as the basis for entering the WAN competition.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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In a recent article on TimesRecordNews.com, education reporter Ann Work interviewed journalism educators in the Wichita Falls, Texas, area about the future of newspapers and how they are preparing students for it -- or not.
She found that while a few teachers still cling to the printed page (one brings in 30 copies of the local paper for the class), others have begun teaching their students audio and video skills in addition to writing.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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"N the News," a free journalism curriculum with lesson plans, subject content and learning activities, is now one unit longer than it was last year.
The curriculum for high school students now boasts a ninth unit on design, "Packaging the History." Eight additional units focus on reporting, writing, law and other journalism topics. The law unit has been revised with a more comprehensive timeline.
"N the News" features a concise, less cluttered look, updated graphics and the additional unit - the first of more units to come, says Sandy Woodcock, director of the NAA Foundation.
"It doesn't have advertising, photography, design and multimedia units," Woodcock says, hinting that those subjects could be forthcoming.
"N the News" is comprehensive enough to serve as the lone curriculum in a classroom, Woodcock says, but it is geared more toward serving as a tool for instructors and advisers who don't have much journalism education experience.
"It is designed to help journalism advisers use the newspaper as their text to teach journalism, and it is tied to national language-arts standards," she says. "This was created especially to fill the gap for classrooms without a journalism textbook."
Click here to download a copy.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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The NAA Foundation and the Media Management Center at Northwestern University teamed up in early 2009 to explore and put to the test better ways to match the online news preferences of young people. "Teens Know What They Want From Online News: Do You?" is the result.
For this research study, we developed prototypes of home pages and story-level pages, then tested them in focus groups across the United States. Teens' responses were remarkably and overwhelmingly consistent, regardless of market size or location.
"In our focus groups, it was clear that teens were not looking for a youth news site that focuses mostly on lifestyle and entertainment content," says Jeanne Fox-Alston, vice president of the NAA Foundation. "What they really want are news sites that do news well - not dumb the news down or pretend that the writers of the site are experts in teen culture."
Given that teen responses were very similar to those of adults who are light readers, we recommend creating a new type of site - not just for teens, but for all people who lack experience with news and have a limited amount of time to get engaged with it. The answer isn't to dilute the news, but to be bolder.
Want to know more? Register for our free webinar, scheduled for 2 to 3 p.m. Eastern time (1 to 2 p.m. Central) on Thursday, April 23. In this one-hour webinar, you will learn what kind of news Web site would attract and interest teenagers.
Meanwhile, click here for the executive summary and full report on our research study.
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The NAA Foundation has awarded six Young Reader Awards to recognize new and noteworthy ideas in NIE and youth content programs.
"The recipients of this year's Young Reader Awards were chosen for their use of innovative strategies that help raise community and brand awareness, cross-departmental cooperation and a multifaceted approach to using news as a teaching tool," says Margaret Vassilikos, senior vice president and treasurer of the Foundation. "Their efforts increase readership and youth engagement via a variety of platforms, helping young people develop a positive newspaper habit that will reap benefits now and in the future."
The winners are:
State/Regional/National Press Association NIE
Pennsylvania Newspaper Association Foundation
Janet Bevan, manager of outreach and partnerships
Newspaper NIE, Circulation up to 60,000
The Lima (Ohio) News
Anne Coburn-Griffis, director of educational services
Newspaper NIE, Circulation 60,001 to 150,000
The Record, Hackensack, N.J.
Cynthia L. Forster, business development manager/education
Newspaper NIE, Circulation 150,001 and Above
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale
Debbie Rahamin, educational services manager
Youth Editorial, Circulation 60,001 and Above
The Post-Standard, Syracuse
Chris Iven, youth editor
Collaboration: Joint Efforts/Projects
Denver Newspaper Agency
Dana Plewka, educational services manager
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The Daily, the University of Minnesota's student newspaper, is taking on a new challenge after 109 years in existence.
Teaming with researcher Christine Greenhow and NewsCloud, a news aggregator in the same vein as Digg, the Daily is using the social networking site Facebook to offer a cutting-edge news page.
The Minnesota Daily application features student and citizen journalism, and is attempting to become the one-stop shop for news audiences in that region.
Click here to see the press release on the University of Minnesota Web site.
Click here to see the Facebook application.
-- By Rashad Mulla, NAA Foundation intern
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