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Children's News Europe members just finished codifying our mission and our goals, all of which aim to help children stand stronger.
Children’s News Europe is a collective of producers of news for children throughout Europe who strive to serve their audiences by offering:
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rigorous and trustworthy journalism with a focus on context and solutions
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resources to support mental health and education, particularly media literacy.
They are joining together to explore how to even better do that job.
Children's News Europe is hosted by Global Youth & News Media, a French NGO association with nonprofit status also in the USA.
LEARN ABOUT OUR MISSION AND GOALS
FOUNDING MEMBERS
BULGARIA - Vijte
DENMARK - Børneavisen
FINLAND - Lasten uutiset
FRANCE / USA - News-O-Matic
NETHERLANDS - KidsWeek
NORWAY - Aftenposten Junior
SLOVENIA - Časoris
FULL PROFILES HERE
WHAT WE'VE BEEN DOING
GLOBAL OUTREACH CNE shared its expertise at the international Mental Health in Journalism Summit, on 10 October 2025 . The event was organized by The Self Investigation, a Dutch foundation that encourages news media to put establishing well-being and mental health in the workplace as a core business strategy. Our panel focused on lessons for adult journalists in the mental health strategies for their young readers that come naturally to our members. Panelists came from our membership, News-O-Matic (moderator Russ Kahn and psychologist Phyllis Ohr) and Časoris (Sonja Merljak Zdovc), and from our secretariat (Aralynn McMane). Here are some takeaways.
Children's News Europe strongly supports the aims of Global Media and Information Literacy Week (October 24-31) so we shared during the week some activities by our members and friends that help children recognize quality journalism and navigate the increasingly whirling mass of digital chimeras that otherwise surrounds them.
Details about member activities HERE
An overview about the week and its goals HERE
EUROPEAN OUTREACH CNE aims to spread the word about why and how carefully constructed news can be beneficial for children and ways those strategies could be useful in doing journalism for grown-ups. Here are scenes from our international interventions in Belgium for European media literacy specialists in Bulgaria for that country's educators and in Slovenia (as part of the YoCo JoIn project supporting journalism by the young.)
Speakers were Sonja Merljak Zdovc (Časoris, Slovenia), Fanny Fröman (Lasten Uutiset, Finland). Dessy Gavrilova ( Vijte, Bulgaria) Marc-Henri Magdelenat (News-O-Matic, France & USA), Henrike van Gelder, (KidsWeek, The Netherlands) along with Aralynn McMane and Josh LaPorte of Global Youth & News Media, which hosts Children's News Europe.
In a new initiative, CNE members began helping Reuters Institute research fellow Ngina Kirori explore some of the latest developments in creating a safe news culture for children. (See below for mor on that work.)
LOCAL OUTREACH We did a pilot "I am a reporter" activity for children at the city of Bayonne (France) forum for associations, partnering with the Basque Country Press Club. Children had to find news among the association exhibitors at the event, then fill in the essentials (who, what....) and create an image. As a reward, they received copies of three French weekly news publications for chidren Le Monde des Ados, aPlayBac Presse edition in English and the monthly Albert. Local banks provided pens and Reporters sans Frontières gave a world press freedom map to help decorate the project headquarters. Helping from CNE were special adviser Marc-Antoine Guet and coordinator Aralynn McMane along with several Press Club members who recruited the children (and their parents). consulted with the public and handed out various newspapers.
LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER Since its founding in late 2023, CNE has helped its own members gain knowledge through an internal newsletter and monthly briefings. Visiting experts and members share expertise with each other and invited guests to help strengthen the work of carefully informing children about the news around them.
Recent session leaders have included Darien Giard, head of digital for Bayard Jeunesse (pictured at left*) on the latest moves in the company’s efforts to do more that guides children in digital space, from subscriptions guru Grzegorze Piechota on now market products that have a different buyer than a user and from Helsingin Sanomat social media producer Salla Varpula on latest effective strategies regarding video. *Didier is showing an artist's version of the Croc'Ecran (devour a screen) box children make to store their phones while doing other activities.
AND HELPING OTHERS TEACH Children's News Europe members were pleased to be able to contribute to Kenya investigative journalist Ngina Kirori exploration of new paths toward how to best serve children with news during her stint as a Reuters Fellow at Oxford University in 2025. Her resulting report, Beyond Cartoons: Wny Newsrooms Must Take Children Seriously focuses on the potential for approaches in Africa but has fresh lessons for all of us doing this work, or who desire to do so.
Read it HERE
As ONE OF ITS FIRST JOINT ACTIONS, Children's News Europe VOTED UNANIMOUSLY TO ENCOURAGE MEDIA LITERACY THAT INCLUDES LESSONS ON THE ROLE OF JOURNALISM IN THE SURVIVAL OF DEMOCRACY:
A good media literacy initiative takes into account the necessary role of journalism in European democracy.
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Journalism differs from other content due to its codification as important for the success of a democratic form of government.
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This form of information puts an emphasis on ethical practice and verification to inform the public.
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Understanding the elements of the ethical journalism that produces quality content also contributes to the ability to decipher the nature of other content.
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It is important to explore the judicial, political and physical attacks some journalists face just to do their jobs.
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Approved 21 March 2024
More about that effort.
PREVIOUS GLOBAL YOUTH & NEWS MEDIA
WorLDWIDE ACTIVITES WITH AND FOR CHILDreN
Helping with the scary news
Global Youth & News Media director Aralynn McMane explored how editors around the world were helping children understand and cope with the news as Russia invaded Ukraine in this 2023 piece for News Decoder, the nonprofit educational news service and global educator. McMane also reported on how the French daily Mon Quotidien and children's editions worldwide handled the 2015 killings of Charlie Hebdo staff. A 2023 Global Youth & News Media report focused on children's news handling of the Hamas attack on Israel that October
ART: Courtesy of News-O-Matic (USA)/by reader Derrin
"[Through their art], my students both from Poland and Ukraine showed that they are the rebels of tomorrow and that it is worth fighting for peace."
-- Teacher Ewa Waworczny
EDITORS, TEAchers UNITE IN GLOBAL ART PROJECT
FOR CHILDREN SHAKEN
BY UKRAINE INVASION
Inspired by Kleine Kinderzeitung of Austria, editors from eight other countries invited children to submit art that wishes peace and love for the hundreds of thousands of children in Ukraine.
And for News-O-Matic (USA), this has been business as usual, as editor Russ Kahn reports.
Peace Day in September 2022 saw children return to the project to show they had not forgotten Ukraine.
And people in countries where Ukrainian children have found a safe haven are still helping them join the project and create a keepsake (instructions in 11 languages).
THE PROJECT DETAILS
DRAWING BORDERS to DOWNLOAD
A LINK FOR SHARING THE ART QUICKLY
HOW TO HELP REFUGEE CHILDREN JOIN Click here to access instructions in Deutsch, Eesti, English, Español, Français, Italia, Nederlands, Polski, Português, Українською, Русском.
LATEST COVERAGE
KidsDraw
Editors of news for children step up once again to help them cope with news they can't avoid
THE SOLUTION CALLS FOR MORE
THAN SOLID JOURNALISM
DETAILS HERE
You can use our 2-minute video
of children's artful demands
about the climate.
Editors of news for children around the world asked their young audiences – those who will be most affected by climate change – to suggest to decision makers the most important first step in saving the planet. Show the resulting video at your climate event! DETAILS HERE
This initiative is a contribution to The Writing's on the Wall project.
LESSONS FROM DOING NEWS
FOR THE YOUNGeST AUDIENCES
WEBINAR #1
Editors targeting grownups can learn a lot from these pros at kids' news
We partnered with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) for a session in which star editors of news for children explained how they build trust through audience engagement and solutions journalism strategies that could also work in serving adults.• DETAILS HERE
WEBINAR #2
Une deuxième webinaire (en français) mettait l'accent sur comment traiter pour enfants l'actualité de crise.
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