A total of 288 schools, representing around 15,000 students, have registered to take part in our new NNI Press Pass initiative. Press Pass was developed by NNI to help increase media literacy by encouraging students to engage with newspapers.

All participating schools now have the opportunity to nominate a local newsagent to supply free newspapers to them for the period of the initiative.

The NNI Press Pass team is currently compiling a 32-page Press Pass workbook. This will contain newspaper articles and exercises designed to enhance the students’ media literacy skills and critical thinking while also giving them a greater appreciation for newspapers and their content.

The Press Pass initiative will culminate in a national writing competition.  Schools will select the best essays/articles on news, features, sport, opinion/analysis and photojournalism for consideration by a panel of judges.

Provincial winners and the overall national winner will be announced at an awards ceremony in early 2013 and all winning articles will be published across the NNI titles.

It is envisaged that a comprehensive survey into student attitudes towards newspapers will form part of the NiE initiative. This presents an opportunity to engage directly with this hard-to-reach audience and as a result, research-sponsorship opportunities are available.

For further information contact Enda Buckley: ebuckley@cullencommunications.ie