WORLD Watch after a full year

We originally envisioned WORLD Watch, our daily video news program for students, as a school-year-only program. When we started planning for it, we assumed the program would take extended summer and holiday breaks.

I’m glad we thought better of that plan!

Had we stuck with it, the WORLD Watch staff might be lying on a beach right now instead of putting together tomorrow’s program. And the thousands of families who have made WORLD Watch a daily habit in their homes would have to find another way to think through current events.

News doesn’t stop for summer, so WORLD Watch runs year-round.

As we near the end of the first year of WORLD Watch, here’s a quick update: Probably because of the pandemic, more families subscribed to the program than we expected. And also probably because of the pandemic, fewer schools and classrooms subscribed than we expected.

We’d like as many students to have access to the program as possible, whether those students are watching with their siblings and parents at home or with their classmates at school. We believe it’s important that students develop news literacy, and particularly news literacy guided by Biblical principles. Along with the news, the program introduces students to people, places, things, and ideas, and gives them Biblical-thinking tools with which to understand them.

One goal for the coming year: provide WORLD Watch access to more schools. Of course we want more families too, but we hate that the pandemic made it difficult for so many schools to use the program with their students. We’re doing a lot of things to make it easier for them.

We love our public- and charter-school teachers and students, but we’re also realistic enough to doubt any public school would welcome an explicitly Christian program like WORLD Watch into their classrooms. So I’d just ask that if you know teachers or administrators at Christian schools, please direct them to worldwatch.news/schools. There, they can learn more about the program and register for access.

If a teacher would like to have someone from our Member Services department provide more information about the program, please email (with their permission, of course) the teacher’s name and email address to memberservices@wng.org, subject line “WORLD Watch interest.”

If you’d like to see a sample of the program, you can find that on the website (worldwatch.news). Our team does good work—I encourage you to check it out.