THE PLANET AWARD 2019
News media inspire young people
to help save a Paraguay forest
and an Indian city
FOR RELEASE ON 13 MAY 2019
A Paraguayan series of captivating stories that targeted young audiences via low-data “scrollytelling” and then spurred action to help save part of a vanishing forest has won The Planet Award category of the 2019 Global Youth & News Media Prize.
Initiatives from India and Denmark also received recognition.
The Planet Award category honors actions that excel in providing young audiences with information and hope for saving the Earth and that strengthen engagement between news media and young people while reinforcing the role of journalism in society.
The digital news team at El Surtidor in Paraguay told a highly visual 4-part story about how and why the vast Gran Chacos forest was losing a hectare of trees every minute. The team began with mobile content in a “scrollytelling” style using both scroll and swipe to show compact chunks of content, then tailored elements distributed on multiple channels, such as posters for Twitter, avatars for Facebook, videos for city buses, etc. Its considerable young audience was a key to pushing the new president to take action toward stopping the deforestation. This video describes the project (in Spanish with English subtitles), and this website shows the content.
The jury said: “This project has everything. It takes into account the local context young people confront, activates youth civil society with the focus on deforestation and explains why anybody should care. It’s impactful, innovative and inspiring.”
In addition, Dainik Jagran of India will receive a silver award for galvanizing young Indians to help save their choking city, and Young Reporters for the Environment, based in Denmark, will receive a special commendation for inspiring 340,000 student reporters in 38 countries to do multi-platform solutions reporting.
The 2019 Planet Award is in partnership with The Eurasian Media Forum, where it will be presented on 23 May in Almaty Kazakhstan. This annual meeting offers an international discussion platform for more than 600 delegates from around the world.
“The Eurasian Media Forum is pleased to host the inaugural Planet Award,” said Dr. Dariga Nazarbayeva, who heads the EAMF organizing committee. “Our partnership with the Global Youth and News Media Prize to launch this award recognises the growing importance of the voice of youth when it comes to saving the planet and securing their future”
The Planet Award is part of the Global Youth & News Media Prize, which was created to give recognition to news media organizations around the world that effectively innovate in the quest to serve, support, attract and learn from young audiences. The prize is supported by News-Decoder, the European Journalism Centre, and, for the news/media literacy award, the Google News Initiative.
The 2019 edition of the prize will include two other core categories, which will be awarded at NewsXchange in November in Paris: The Journalism Award and The News/Media Literacy Award. The competition for these awards will open on 1 June with a deadline of 25 June.
More about the 2019 Planet Award laureates and the upcoming phase of the competition at globalyouthandnewsmediaprize.net
For further information
Directors: Dr. Aralynn McMane at +33 61012 3006 (text preferred) and Jo Weir +44 7990 565872 (text preferred) or info@youthandnewsmedia.net