The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) has invited newspapers from around the world to participate in a new global journalism experience for youth. The idea is to get young people to interview entertainment stars or public figures through the auspices of their local newspapers, and help boost newspaper circulation in the process.
The ‘My Dream Interview’ international youth reporter festival of success stories, supported by the Fundacion Acindar of Argentina, asks school teams of 11- to 15-year olds to choose a prominent person they would like to interview, then come up with the questions to ask. The school teams submit their idea and questions to the participating newspaper, which chooses the best set of questions, helps the winning team conduct the interview, and publishes it.
WAN-IFRA is also providing a guide to newspapers to help teachers work with students on creating a journalistic interview.
“This activity is a great one for raising the profile of newspapers among this age group when most children develop – or don’t – a news consumption habit,” said Dr. Aralynn McMane, WAN-IFRA executive director of Young Readership Development.
“It’s also an excellent educational exercise to teach about how to do a journalistic interview, involving careful verification and fact-checking and smart question construction. And the resulting interview is sure to be popular.”
Newspapers can then enter the interview in a worldwide WAN-IFRA competition, with the winners presented at a ceremony at the IFRA Expo in Madrid in October. Winning interviews will be distributed globally by The Interview People, with all royalties going to winning schools.
Already on board are La Nacion of Argentina, The Monitor of Uganda, Polskapresse of Poland, The West Australian, and many others. There is still time to join them; the registration deadline is 29 February and full details can be found here.
Newspapers interested in participating have until the end of February to sign up by writing the project manager, Roxana Morduchowicz, at wanifra.mydreaminterview@gmail.com or joining the World Young Reader My Dream Interview Group.
WAN-IFRA, based in Paris, France, and Darmstadt, Germany, with subsidiaries in Singapore, India, Spain, France and Sweden, is the global organisation of the world’s newspapers and news publishers. It represents more than 18 000 publications, 15 000 online sites and over 3 000 companies in more than 120 countries.
