White paper on the ‘Jahr der Nachricht’ (Year of the News) for newsrooms und media organisations

The ‘Jahr der Nachricht’ has come to an end and we are looking back: Which of the numerous contributions have been particularly good at reaching young people? And what can editorial teams learn from our experiments on TikTok, Instagram and Twitch? How did our events on journalism and news for school classes und young people go? Which co-creation projects between journalists and school classes worked particularly well? We have published our key findings from the ‘Jahr der Nachricht’ in two white papers which are available on our website.

The white paper ‘Journalism Edition’ (available in both English and German) is aimed at media organisations and journalists who want to find out how to reach young people with news and journalism in the flood of information. On more than 80 pages, we give insights into the experiences and learnings of the social media test lab ‘Social News Daily’, the newscamps with young audiences and the local co-creation projects. The white paper is published by #UseTheNews, the Madsack Foundation and the Medienverband der Freien Presse (Media Association of the Free Press). 

Download the white paper ‘Journalism Edition’ here.

What the white paper contains:

• Studies: Various #UseTheNews studies have investigated the media consumption behaviours of teenagers and young adults. This and the ‘Jahr der Nachricht’ resulted in various recommendations for action for news organisations and educational players.  
• Campaign: Insights into the campaign of the ‘Jahr der Nachricht’, which drew attention to trustworthy information – with testimonials and the message: ‘Vertraue Nachrichten, die stimmen statt Stimmung machen.’ (‘Trust news that is true instead of spreading hate speech and agitation.’).  
• Social News Daily: The ‘Social News Daily’ team spent a year testing various formats to see how young people can be reached with social media journalism. They shared their learnings and experiences, including specific tips for editorial teams.  
• Newscamps: At 43 newscamps, journalists and educational institutions engaged in workshops, talks and other activities with young people on topics such as journalism, news production and disinformation. The white paper summarises the lessons learned, including specific tips for organising own newscamps  
• Co-creation projects: In journalistic projects, pupils and local journalists worked together to produce digital content. By that the young people learnt the craft of journalism and were able to contribute their own topics.  
• Educate: Specific tips on how news literacy can be taught to students as well as materials, links and offers from the #UseTheNews community.  
• Lessons learnt: Those are the insights and learnings that #UseTheNews and its partners took away from the ‘Jahr der Nachricht’.

The white paper ‘Ausgabe Bildung’ (only available in German) is aimed at teachers and people from the education sector. It aims to convey how teachers can educate young people about disinformation and how information literacy can be taught in the classroom. The white paper is published by #UseTheNews and Westermann. The white paper is only available in German.

Download the white paper ‘Ausgabe Bildung’ (only available in German) here.