Serene Luo is schools editor at The Straits Times in Singapore, and runs its flagship product for children: Little Red Dot. Established in 2005, it has regularly won international awards and served as a model for excellent practice. She also runs IN, aimed at teenagers. A recent highlight: As part of a new strategy, an easy-to-digest explainer in child-friendly language about the war in Ukraine appeared not only in both youth editions, but also in the main paper, along with a guide for talking to children about disturbing news.

Henrike van Gelder is editor-in-chief of the children’s magazines KidsWeek (a weekly concentrating on news) and Samsam (a monthly focusing on foreign topics) at Sijthoff Media in The Netherlands. Both are published in print (Kidsweek has 60,000 subscribers and Samsam has 70,000), online and in social media with educational material for home and school. Recent highlights: In 2021, Kidsweek added special content online to help parents and teachers talk with children about the news and pedagogical issues such as game addiction. Samsam’s most recent themes were Japan, tech in health, humor, robots and conflict.

Dr. Aralynn Abare McMane directs Global Youth & News Media, the France-based nonprofit that honors and helps news media that care about the young and amplifies youth voices through awards and joint projects. [You are on their site.] McMane is the author of the 2017 report: The New News for Kids, for which she desperately seeks a partner to be able to update. A recent highlight: Several of the organizations represented on the panel won a special 2021 Global Youth & News Media Prize for their early coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Carlos Echeverri’s Mi Super Diario began in 2003 and caters to 7- to-12-year-olds, with iterations appearing weekly in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru, Mexico and, until recently, Venezuela. Except for Honduras, where it goes free to schools, it appears with the local newspaper for a total of about 200,000 print copies each week. A recent quote: “Unfortunately, in our countries there is a lot of bad news, especially for kids. So, yes, 50% of our news is….bad news, explained for kids.”

Russell Kahn is the chief content and education officer at News-O-Matic. The digital daily news platform is based in New York and Paris with content at various reading levels in English, plus text and audio translations by native speakers in French, Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin. Founded in 2013, News-O-Matic has had more than 5 million downloads of its app from 148 countries and has been implemented in thousands of U.S. schools. It has earned numerous educational and journalism awards. A recent highlight: A follow-up to a story about the Monarch butterfly becoming an endangered species focused on the "Monarch City" designation that encourages and recognizes municipalities that make an active effort to support the butterflies.

Paul Adepoju  joined the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) as community manager for its English-language forum, notably the Pamela Howard Forum on Global Crisis Reporting. He has a Ph.D. in cell biology and genetics. A recent quote: He notes that even before joining the ICFJ, he had "a personal mission to get more African science and health content on the front pages of newspapers, magazines and other news channels I work with, suchas Devex and Quartz."