The awards are part of WAN-IFRA's annual World Young Reader Prize competition, which honours innovative newspapers that have devised the best project or activity to attract young readers. The awards are made in six categories: branding, public service, press freedom, editorial, and in ‘making the news'.
The awards, supported by the global newsprint supplier Norske Skog, will be presented during Making New Connections the 8th World Young Reader Conference, set for 27-30 September in Prague. Conference participants will receive DVDs with full details about all the projects and hear the winners talk about how they did it.
“Through its all-encompassing view of youth as an integral part of its staff and a key part of its audience, Zero Hora has attained an astonishing loyalty level among the young,” the judges said. The paper's management credits its wide-ranging ‘Total Youth Think' techniques for obtaining a 78% penetration rate among young people aged 20 to 29 years and a 71% penetration rate among those aged 15 to 19.
Zero Hora's entry included an editorial linking to the ‘firsts' in a child's life, a contest celebrating hyper local identity, and a promotion in which youth created an album using stickers and symbols from the paper to learn about Brazil's 19th century revolutionary period.
“Express & Echo is a small daily (22 000 circulation) that is taking a big role in the crucial issue of our time: the environment,” the judges said. Express & Echo's entry described its ‘Green Team Project' to encourage youngsters to develop a relationship with their local newspaper as they learn to think green and produce school projects that will help the environment.
Judges were past World Young Reader prize-winners from Australia, South Africa, Poland and Panama, plus Young Reader Advisory Committee members from Belgium and Spain. WAN-IFRA Golden Pen Laureates Dien Viet Hoat (Vietnam) and Pius Njawe (Cameroon) judged the press freedom category. In all, judges assessed 65 entries from 32 countries.
A summary of the projects can be found at www.wan-press.org/nie/articles.php?id=2176
