Časoris is an award-winning free online newspaper for children.
Our mission is to guide and inspire children in making informed decisions and becoming informed, active, compassionate and responsible citizens of the world.
Children want to know what is going on around them. We offer them news they can trust – timely, relevant articles on current affairs for children, by children and in the name of children. Information is put in context and presented in kids-friendly language.
We support them to understand the news and current affairs, to critically think about what they’re reading, and to apply this knowledge to the real world. Every article is accompanied by questions for additional reflection and a glossary.
We believe they have stories to tell and we also offer them a platform for their voices – a place to discuss issues that are important to them.
We believe in unbiased, accurate and ethical journalism. Without quality journalism, there is no democracy nor freedom.
How it all started
Časoris was created in April of 2015 – in the aftermath of the January’s terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
At the time, many parents were wondering how to explain what happened to their children.
An article about how a French newspaper for children did just that reminded us that we have no such medium for children and their parents in Slovenia and it encouraged us to launch Časoris.
Today, it is considered as Positive Online Content by Better Internet for Kids.
Časoris is published by Časoris, Information and Education Institute. It is edited by Sonja Merljak Zdovc, and a team of journalists, copyeditors, teachers and other professionals contributes regularly. Additionally, children share their stories in a special section.
In a special section we also publish additional information for parents and teachers.
Časoris is dedicated to encouraging a supportive and inclusive culture amongst the whole workforce. It is within our best interest to promote diversity and eliminate discrimination in the workplace. Therefore, Časoris has signed the Diversity Charter of Slovenia, and the editor Sonja Merljak Zdovc is also one of the Slovenian diversity ambassadors.
You may contact us at: urednistvo@casoris.si.
Sonja’s personal statement
I love being a journalist. I believe this is the most beautiful profession in the world. When I became one, we used to say that we want to bring peace to the world. Just like the ladies at the Miss of the World competition.
However, in the last decades journalism became a dying profession. And the media, so crucial to democracy, began to lose their readers, listeners, viewers.
Additionally, with the growing amount of information available on various channels people began to feel they know enough and that they can have any kind of information for free.
Children growing up today live in the world of TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and You Tube. And they do not see their parents read newspapers or watch the news as we did.
With a generation of readers already lost, I began to think what I could do to help. I came up with a solution: an online newspaper for children.
Online, because children are on the web. Newspaper, because I wanted them to read serious news, not just the fun staff.
I created Časoris.
It is aimed at very young children, those who won’t read the news on their own. But they are trustful souls and if the adults they respect, their teachers and parents, tell them it is good to read the newspaper, they will listen.
This way we can hope that when they become teenagers, they will develop a habit of reading reliable sources of information. And when a popular You Tuber will tell them that the EU directive will ban memes, they will know where to double check their facts.
But Časoris was not enough. At the time it was created, fake news became a household term. A lot of people began to lose trust in the media even though social media play a much bigger role in the spread of disinformation.
So we developed workshops to help children learn how spot fake news, how to discern fact from opinion, and also how to create media, news stories or videos. They for example made a video on fake news, and I wrote a textbook.
With this set of tools that we continue to develop, we hope to help them to become informed and active citizens. And I hope that by creating a new generation of readers I will help to restore the trust in the media; that I will help to save the profession I love so much; and that I will thus contribute my piece for peace.
Projects, Grants, Support and Awards
In 2024, we became the founding member of Children’s News Europe. Dr. Sonja Merljak Zdovc received the Prometheus of Science award for excellence in science communication for Časoris’s media literacy portal.
In 2023, Časoris started mentoring children journalists through Google News Initiative News Equity Fund, received funding from US Embassy Ljubljana for its MIL4SF project, and also started the Creative Europe project YoCoJoin. The online newspaper Časoris received support from the Ministry of Culture.
In 2022, Časoris implemented the Erasmus+ project KidsTrustNews: Introducing Media Literacy and Civic Education Teaching in Schools through Quality Kids Media in partnership with the Bulgarian organisation Knigovishte.
Časoris was included in the GNI FT Strategies North Star programme as well as in the GNI NCI programme where it was recognized as one of the success stories.
In 2021, Časoris was named as an example of best practice in implementing media literacy in the ERGA Media Literacy Report and its editor, Sonja Merljak Zdovc, was included among #WomenInTheSpotlight by Creative EU, official European Commission account focusing on the creative & cultural sectors in Europe on Instagram. #WomenInTheSpotlight is Creative EU’s Instagram campaign supporting talented and creative women.
The project idea Časoris developed together with partners from North Macedonia during the Digital Communication Network and WorldLearning #DisinfoTraining in May and June and which Časoris’s editor pitched at #Roaring20sDigital conference won the first prize.
Časoris became a participant of the first ever GNI Startups Lab Europe – a six month programme designed to put news startups on the track to sustainability and innovation. The programme is organized by Media Lab Bayern, the European Journalism Center and the Google News Initiative.
Časoris was included in the GNI FT Strategies Rapid Response programme.
In 2020, it received a grant from Internews, an international nonprofit organisation, via its Information Saves Lives: Rapid Response Fund. Internews empowers people worldwide with the trustworthy, high-quality news and information they need to make informed decisions, participate in their communities, and hold power to account.
Časoris has also received funding from the European Journalism COVID-19 Support Fund to support us to produce a series of videos for children as well as coverage of related topics during the Covid-19 crisis.
In 2019, Časoris became a finalist of the first European Media Literacy Award. Additionally, its project Stories of Children from around the World won both the Intercultural Achievement Award in the media category, as well as the Clarinet Project in the Web and Social Media category.
