Crinkling News is an Australian newspaper for children. Each week it brings news and current affairs to children aged between seven and fourteen years old. It also provides children with opportunities to do reporting and editing. Crinkling News is staffed by professional journalists and advised by a child psychologist so the content is age appropriate and has high standards for its news reporting. As Crinkling News points out, children are curious about the wider world, but regular news and current affairs media do not explain what is going on in a manner suitable for children.
I don’t have children in this age group so I had not heard of this newspaper until the last fortnight when Crinkling News launched a campaign to raise funds on Indiegogo. Children love the newspapers as do parents, grandparents and teachers, but without more funds for business development it will have to close.
In an era when the idea of truth is being battered; when social media is too often a conduit for rumours, innuendo and hate; when superficiality is lauded over complexity; our children need their own sources of reliable news. We want them to become informed, inquiring adults. They cannot do this if they grow up hearing snippets from scare-mongering current affairs programs and reading social media posts peddling falsities that have been dressed up as news. Continue reading