The conference began yesterday and goes until tomorrow, bringing together 400 participants from 74 countries to fight newspapers’ decline among young readers and discuss strategies, both in print and online, that newspapers use to increase youth readership.

WAN awarded the World Young Reader Newspaper of the Year prize to the Times of India during a ceremony yesterday. In addition to taking the top award, The Times was also awarded the World Young Reader Prize in the Newspapers in Education category, which honored its effective use of the newspaper as a teaching tool.

"Reading & Learning," a series of Newspapers in Education (NIE) guides that target diversity as a core element of NIE, has also been unveiled at the conference. The three-part series includes guides for newspaper executives, NIE coordinators and teachers. The guides, in English or Spanish, are available by request to nie@wan.asso.fr.

"A Newspapers in Education program won't work if it means simply leaving a package of newspapers at the school door," said Aralynn McMane, Director of Young Readership Development at the Paris-based WAN. "A good program requires more than that. It is rare, indeed, that all three key stakeholders - publishers, NIE coordinators and teachers - receive a resource to guide each of them through the specific tasks they must undertake to assure that the newspaper is effectively used in the classroom."

Thus far, the conference has featured speakers from members of NIE, Newspaper Association of America, and other youth-reader organizations presenting ideas what youth want in newspapers.

Summaries of all the Young Reader Conference presentations are available here

Source: WAN press release