Reaching the schools

GREAT NEWS: WORLD Watch, our video news program for students, is now in its third season. We said from the beginning that we hoped by Year 3 our subscribers would carry most of the financial load for the program, and we think that will be the case.

WORLD Watch gives viewers an intelligent daily summary of the news. It’s aimed at ­students who are still learning about the world—without talking down to them. Each program also has a longer feature or two that goes in-depth on big, or just interesting, stories—like a recent piece that creatively explained the science behind why our ears pop, another that stepped back in time to show a 19th-century blast furnace preserved in all its pig-iron glory, and a colorful visit to an ice-cream business that serves the disabled by putting them to work.

We keep the Christian worldview front and center, and we keep every program to about 10 minutes. All of that probably is why we hear so many positive comments from the adults in the room.

We launched WORLD Watch by faith in August 2020, in the middle of the COVID shutdowns. I emphasize by faith because—even though we had commitments from many WORLD readers to support the launch—we had no idea how the program would be received, much less whether viewers would pay for a subscription.

As it turned out, COVID had little effect on our subscriptions to families. If anything, we had more families subscribe that first year than expected. But Christian schools were a different story. Their acceptance of WORLD Watch that first year never really got off the ground.

To help reach those schools, many of you contributed last year to our fall WORLD Watch campaign to get the program into more classrooms. Now we want to think even bigger.

WORLD Watch is now in hundreds of classrooms, but we believe it should be in thousands. You can contribute to this campaign at wng.org/givetoWW.

Meanwhile, a question: Have you seen WORLD Watch yet? Even if you’re not a student, or don’t have students in your extended family, I encourage you to try out a free trial week of the program at worldwatch.news.

After all, young or old, we’re all still learning about the world.