She turned to her father and asked if he could get her a subscription.
I could understand her interest. Growing up, newspapers always featured prominently on our breakfast table. Initially, I’d flick through to the cartoons but as I go older, it quickly became a regular, daily habit. Sections would be carved off between family members, and then redistributed once read. Conversations would be started, everyone would leave for school or work with some kind of understanding regarding what mattered in the world that day.
I never had access to a newspaper specifically designed for kids back then because there was no such thing. I wonder now how such a publication would have helped shape my world view, particularly how I could have better accessed community and world news stories in a way that is sensible for kids to read — a way that’s written specifically for kids.
So when I heard about Saffron Howden co-founding Australia’s first national newspaper for kids a little over a year ago, I was instantly interested.
And at a time when media companies are struggling and printed newspapers are in decline, I believe a newspaper for kids is more important than ever before.
My kids are not yet old enough to read Crinkling News (it targets kids aged seven to 14) but I had pictured regular mornings in the future when we’d sit down together to go through it. I imagined using it as a weekly check-in point to share my own love of journalism with my kids, and a scheduled time to engage their curiosity, and to explain a little more about our place in the world, how and why it’s changing, and what they can do to get involved.
I saw this as the one place I could connect my kids to real newspapers. For me, like many parents my age, most of the media I do consume occurs on my tablet, where kids are unlikely to stumble across the SMH or The Australian apps and start to poke around at what’s going on in the world. Newspapers won’t be sitting next to their weetbix bowls, like they did when we were kids.
I may not have the opportunity to share Crinkling with my kids, because after successfully publishing weekly editions for one year, Crinkling News may be forced to shut down, as early as this month.
Crinkling board member and former SMH editor-in-chief Peter Fray revealed the extent of the problem in Crikey yesterday, with co-founder and former ex-Fairfax employees, Saffron Howden and Remi Bianchi, running out of seed funding.
This is despite the success of Crinkling, which in just one year is already sold in to 800 schools and thousand of homes. Fray laments the current state of the media sector, particularly given the Fairfax cuts announced this week, and asks the question: “Do we really want our kids growing up not understanding the role played by journalism – and journalists – in a functioning democracy?”
Do we want our kids to grow up not understanding the role of journalists in holding the powerful to account? Fray continues. And what if John Fairfax had never been born, could Eddie Obeid now be premier of NSW?
Fray went on to announce a kickstarter to help raise the $200,000 needed to keep Crinkling publishing and see it become a self-sustaining publication. So far, in less than 24 hours, it’s reached 14% of its goal.
Recently, Saffron (pictured with me above) joined Georgie Dent and I on the Work it Out podcast to share why she created a newspaper for kids and how she’s published one every week for the past year, from her home in the Blue Mountains.
Saffron explained that Australia was one of the few countries in the world without a dedicated newspaper for kids. China has hundreds. She spoke about how they take special care to share the news in ways that kids can understand and feel a part of, and even work with young reporters on shaping stories, interviewing politicians and editing the publication.
I was struck by Saffron’s passion and her work ethic. I thought how wonderful it must be for her young daughter — not even at reading age — to grow up in a household making newspapers. Having personally edited a weekly magazine myself for three years and now running Women’s Agenda as a business, I was also curious to hear how Saffron makes it work. Editing a publication you’re passionate about is all-consuming: you’ll think about it constantly, always on the hunt for great writers and interesting stories, and you’ll regularly find yourself up at 2am — if not working, then thinking about your next cover or feature idea, or panicking about a typo (or worse), that you’re suddenly sure you sent to press.
Editing a publication’s one thing, going on to also manage it as a sustainable business is another.
If you care about the role of media in keeping organisations and governments accountable, and its place in keeping you informed and contributing to public discourse – or if you simple enjoy the media – then I believe you should buy subscriptions to the news and media you consume (I also believe anyone with a marketing budget should consider how they can better support the media that’s relevant to their businesses, rather than the PR firms that pitch to such media alone, but that’s for another time).
And if you care about our kids having a healthy relationship with the media and the news that matters in their communities and the wider world, then I believe you should care about Crinkling News, and aim to support it in whatever way you can.
You can access the kickstarter here.
Listen to the podcast we recently recorded with Saffron below, we specifically discuss Crinkling about halfway through.