'My Dream Interview' Festival draws youth to newspapers

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. 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.

On board

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. 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 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.