Do you know a news organization that engages with youth and supports solid journalism? They could win a global prize.
News organizations around the world are invited to apply for two awards that will be handed out at a major international media conference in Paris in November.
The next Global Youth and News Media Prize, which is supported by News-Decoder, will honor outstanding work in two categories: impact reporting and news literacy.
The inaugural version of this prize, launched last year, recognized outstanding work by students at a U.S. high school where a mass shooting took place. The winning work was done in partnership with the U.S. edition of The Guardian newspaper. A digital media group in Paraguay won a separate award for environmental reporting in April.
Winners of the next two prizes will be invited to attend the NewsXchange media conference in Paris in November. “We look forward to welcoming the winners to NewsXchange in Paris where they will be able to demonstrate the importance of the youth audience to leading international media companies,” said Jo Weir, one of the co-founders of the award.
Paying attention to young people
The periodic awards celebrate work that attracts and learns from young audiences, ages 13 to 25.
The deadline for applications for the next prizes is June 25. News organizations or third parties can apply. Here is information on how to apply.
The Journalism Award will recognize “reporting, especially solutions reporting, that breaks stereotypes or adds important insights about or from young people and that has a clear, important impact.”
The News/Media Literacy Award will honor “initiatives that effectively educate about journalism and news media in ways that help young audiences navigate all kinds of content as they develop news habits and knowledge key to developing active citizenship.”
“We and our partners are absolutely convinced that news media must pay attention to the vital concerns of the upcoming generation of young people,” said Aralynn McMane, the other co-founder. “The purpose of all the prize categories is to ferret out and then disseminate great ideas that can work in other places.”
Both Weir and McMane are members of the board that governs News-Decoder, whose mission is to help young people around the world become better global citizens.
Along with News-Decoder, the European Journalism Centre, Google and the Eurasian Media Forum support the prizes. The inaugural prize was given out at last year’s NewsXchange conference in Scotland, and the winners of The Planet Award for environmental reporting, El Surtidor, were honored at the Eurasian Media Forum’s meeting in Kazakhstan in April.
Nelson Graves is the founder of News-Decoder.