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ST READERS' POST
MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 2014
Nine years ago, Serene Goh was tasked to start a schools desk
within The Straits Times to offer content aimed at attracting
young readers to read the newspaper. She and her modest team
weathered good-natured ribbing and cynical barbs, and plugged
away. Good that she did because the work of her desk is a runaway
hit with young readers today. The pages, programmes and books
the desk has offered have since culminated in an ‘Oscar’ award for
ST by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers,
which Goh picked up in a ceremony in Warsaw last month. Here’s
her happy story to kick off the first Readers’ Page of the new year.
JUST ONE VIEW
The little desk
that could
By SERENE GOH
SCHOOLS EDITOR
TELLING adults that your job is
to get young people reading the
newspaper is a lot like saying you
are looking for a unicorn to ride to
the North Pole.
Some think you delusional
(“The young don’t read the paper
anymore, right?”), some are acerbic (“There’s this thing called the
Internet nowadays”), while others
are just plain dismissive (“That’s
not ‘real’ journalism”).
Most are ambivalent. Even if
they have heard of the nineyear-old Straits Times News In
Education (NIE) programme, they
are unlikely to have paged
through its weekly magazines for
secondary and primary school
readers, IN and Little Red Dot.
Even if they have read about its
multiple awards, they might not
know what these are for (See
box).
The upside? Our niche audience – young readers, teachers
and parents – are extremely supportive. We receive a daily stream
of calls and enthusiastic e-mail
seeking to subscribe, while teachers champion its resources as a
portable, economic way to “make
reading cool again”.
Our responses today are a far
cry from when we began in December 2004.
For a start, our desk comprised
three inexperienced reporters,
one deputy and a nervous editor
tasked to run The Straits Times
Media Club for school reporters
and launch a 16-page weekly for
teenagers.
Instead of asking questions, we
had to field answers, chiefly to
confirm that “yes, we really are
part of The Straits Times...”.
Today, the team remains lean,
despite its increased range of deliverables.
At any time, there are fewer
than 10 people – reporters, editors and artists – producing content for its two weekly 20-page
publications and outreach events,
and books.
The same staff generate English learning resources for The
Straits Times Education Programme (STep), and conduct media training workshops for parents and teachers.
The result: about 100,000 subscriptions among schools every
week, and a familial response to
its mission and events.
Most prominently, the RHBThe Straits Times National Spelling Championship, The Straits
Times-MOE National Current Affairs Quiz and The Straits Times
National Youth Media Competition have a loyal following among
those seven to 17.
Among its spin-off titles,
2012’s teaching resource 48 Values From The News: The Straits
Times Guide To Building Character, was especially well received.
It aimed to get young people thinking about their relationships, identity and choices, using news stories to broach otherwise hard-todiscuss issues – chastity, equality
and respect for the elderly, among
others.
Over the years, such resources
and events have earned many distinctions.
More than an ego boost, they
are an affirmation from a world-
The Straits Times’ award-winning schools team comprises (from left) journalist Nur Syahiidah Zainal, sub-editor
James Jr. Quek, journalist Sheryl Quek, correspondent Debra Ann Francisco, art director Jaster Ngui, deputy editor
Serene Luo, journalist Ang Yiying and editor Serene Goh. ST PHOTO: ASHLEIGH SIM
MAJORAWARDS
2006
L Pacific Area Newspaper
Publishers’ Association (Panpa)
awards The Straits Times Little
Red Dot for editorial excellence
in reaching primary school
readers.
L World Association of
Newspapers (WAN) awards The
Straits Times Media Club and
IN a World Young Reader Prize
brand commendation for
engaging teens through
journalism.
2007
L WAN awards The Straits
Times Media Club and IN a
World Young Reader Prize
brand commendation for
excellence in promoting media
literacy.
2010
L Global body World
wide peer group that this paper’s
NIE initiative is delivering on its
most critical function: creating
quality classroom resources that
A21
Association of Newspapers and
News Publishers (WAN-Ifra)
awards its top World Young
Reader Prize for Newspapers In
Education to The Straits Times
for the revamp of IN and the
spin-off teachers’ guidebook,
Using The Newspaper In The
Classroom.
2011
L Panpa awards its Young
Reader Prize, a marketing
strategy award, to The Straits
Times Education Programme
(STep), which consists of
weekly worksheets pegged to
the news.
2012
L WAN-Ifra awards a World
Young Reader Prize brand
commendation to the RHB-The
Straits Times National Spelling
Championship (The Big Spell),
entrench the news in education.
To a publisher, NIE’s value extends to its very long-term goal –
that of predicting news consump-
developed with the Ministry of
Education.
L Panpa awards The Big Spell
Best Newspaper Event 2012.
2013
L WAN-Ifra’s Asian Media
Award for Community Service
(Gold) goes to the teachers’
handbook, 48 Values From The
News: The Straits Times Guide
To Building Character.
L WAN-Ifra awards its top
World Young Reader Prize
for Learning With The News
to the 48 Values book and
special editions of IN for
Racial Harmony Day and
National Day that led to the
use of The Straits Times
nationwide within the
Education Ministry’s
curriculum for Character and
Citizenship Education.
tion trends – or as a former journalism professor called it: “Chasing the Holy Grail.”
After all, tomorrow’s reader is
an elusive quarry especially in this
platform-fragmented media age
of print, social media and online
newspapers.
As teens of today, they exploit
the Web to champion causes.
Tweens turn to YouTube to learn
anything from juggling to baking,
and tots attempt to pinch and
swipe their parents’ print magazines.
It is anyone’s guess how they
will relate to content as adults a
decade from now, though it is not
the key focus of main operations
in media organisations to fathom
what or how.
That work does, however, reside with newspapers’ young reader departments, which keep track
of patterns as they evolve in children while supporting language
learning and media literacy.
Young people from 10 years
ago were, in fact, the first to invite IN and Little Red Dot journalists to their blogs, Maplestory and
Friendster.
They told us about trolls in cyberbullying, and taught us how to
Tweet, tag and lol.
Today, they are adult Gen Y
readers who take for granted instant participation and response.
In line with their needs, The
Straits Times has added to its core
agenda social media, online video,
even stories that can be told in
140 words or less.
To the Galahads labouring at
the Schools section, current
trends already exist in the past.
Their quest has moved on to stories about young YouTubers who
have massive fan followings, photo trends like “horsemanning”,
and the inexplicable popularity of
a video featuring a singing Pakistani fishmonger.
The results of their ongoing
mission might not emerge for several years.
Then again, if it is the Grail
they are after, it is possible they
will be a while.
Post your view at the
Readers’ Post website at
readerspost.straitstimes.com or
e-mail it to [email protected]