At What’s Up, we think values should—and do—count when schools select resources for their students. Therefore, What’s Up editors’ core mission is “values-driven journalism”. For a start, this means that What’s Up will “do no harm”. Its editors are mindful of the fact that grown-up mass media often undermine the efforts of teachers and parents at inculcating positive values. For example, adult newspapers routinely carry ads for slimming products and bust enhancement (even as their news stories bemoan body image problems and eating disorders among the young!). Sex and sexism is frequently used to titillate readers. Similarly, stories and pictures of war and violence in adult newspapers rarely consider the impact on the young.
What’s Up does not believe in completely insulating children from the grown-up world, but insists on the right of children to find out about adult things in ways that are psychologically healthy. Therefore, no What’s Up stories, pictures or advertisements are developmentally inappropriate for minors.
Values-driven journalism also translates into a positive mission. What’s Up regards the news as an endless source of interesting stories that can be used to communicate positive values, subtly and creatively. Every major story in What’s Up is there to further some aspect of our editorial agenda.
THE WHAT’S UP COMMITMENT
The publishers and editors of What’s Up pledge that
1. We will give children news that matters, emphasising stories that clarify change and enrich childhood.
2. We will practise values-driven journalism, always putting children’s needs ahead of commercial self-interest.
3. We know that children are an impressionable and vulnerable audience, and will never publish stories, pictures or advertisements that are inappropriate for them.
4. We will treat children with respect, as individuals who have a right to learn about their world and a right to express their views.
5. We will work for a better Singapore and a better world, by preparing children to participate as responsible stakeholders.
OUR EDITORIAL AGENDA
Through our stories, we promote:
1. Multiculturalism. Respecting the diversity among people while searching for common ground.
2. Social responsibility. Addressing the needs of the local and global community through democratic participation.
3. Environmental stewardship. Caring for the natural environment, globally and locally.
4. Resilience in adversity. Coping with the conflict and calamity that are part of life.
5. Discovery and innovation. Asking questions and searching for answers, guided by science and spurred by curiosity.
6. Creativity and self-expression. Thinking, speaking and acting in original ways, without fearing the uncoventional.
7. Character and self-respect. Building one’s individuality, by respecting one’s own mind, body and culture.
8 Reading. Valuing the written word as the main medium for communicating complex ideas and transmitting knowledge.
