Ten years ago, a new magazine was born in the UK: The Week Junior. A news weekly for children that saw a “proper return to things being print-first, magazines being print-first, and not just a vehicle for a toy.”  Anna Bassi is the editorial director of the magazine. She has been at the magazine since its launch and is still as passionate about The Week Junior as she was on day one.

Anna Bassi’s work with children’s magazines started over 30 years ago.  After 20 years of editing such magazines, she got disillusioned with children’s magazines. She left the field of children’s magazine publishing because “I had a growing realization that we were spending more money on the cover mounts, and less and less money on the content,” Ms. Bassi told me.

She added, “I’d see children, grabbing their magazines, tearing the toy off the front, chucking the magazine on the floor, and it couldn’t even be looked at. And it was just, and we spent so much time talking about the packaging for the toy, it had to look as though it could be shop-bought. And then the budget for the editorial content would be halved and halved again every year.”

Then, something like magic happened.  She was recruited to launch The Week Junior magazine, “a great thing to be involved in.” She told me, “It’s a joy to be working on something where the investment actually is in the content and nothing else. It’s a real privilege.”

To read the story of this privilege, please join me in this conversation with Anna Bassi, editorial director, The Week Junior, in the UK, but first, the soundbites:

On reading on paper: “The experience of reading on paper is so very different to reading on a screen, and it’s increasingly the case now, so perhaps we’re a little bit ahead of ourselves back in 2015.”

On the role of the magazine: “We can create news that is made for children, and that didn’t mean that we wouldn’t address important or complicated or serious issues, it just meant that we would do it in a way that was very clear for our readers, like a conversation with them.”

On the tone of the magazine: “One of the principles of the magazine is not to be a teacher, it’s a conversation. We’re trying to have a conversation with the child, we’re trying to meet them where they are, and if anything, we’re the slightly smarter, older sibling of our average aged 10-year-old reader.”

On the content of the magazine: “There’s something around the way a print magazine is curated, that thought that goes into which story goes where, which picture goes where, how a child experiences a page, which is very different to the on-screen experience.”

On launching during a crisis: “There’s something about launching into an adverse situation. It pulls teams together, and it clarifies the purpose of the magazine.”

On her ten-year journey: “There have been loads of challenges, but it’s been, I should say it’s been great fun more than anything else. It’s just an honor and a privilege to do something like this, to create a magazine for children.”

On the many extensions of The Week Junior: “We have a lot of extensions. We’ve been very busy. The first extension was the launch of The Week Junior Science and Nature magazine in 2018.” 

On more extensions: “We launched a podcast in 2019 called The Week Junior show, which is still released every week, we just recorded our 10th birthday episode this morning.”

On her advice to someone launching a magazine: “Do your research, know your audience, respect your audience, I think is key.”

On the design of the magazine: “We needed to do to be different, but also to be useful, was to make a magazine that was genuinely accessible. So, it is designed to be read. The way the pages are laid out is very deliberate. It’s about being able to navigate that page easily. You know where it begins and where it ends.”

On what keeps her up at night: “Not so much these days.  Sometimes the news keeps me up at night, I do worry.”

And now for the lightly edited conversation with Anna Bassi, editorial director, The Week Junior, in the UK.

Samir Husni: You just celebrated 10 years of The Week Junior, tell me about the genesis of the magazine. Why would you start a print news weekly for children in this digital age?

Anna Bassi: It seems like a crazy idea, doesn’t it? The origin of The Week Junior dates back more than 10 years, in fact even before my time with it.  I was the launch editor here in the UK, but there has been around a year’s worth of development work on the idea prior to me joining. It had been born from the realization that The Week magazine, which obviously is also a UK publication, had many schools subscribing to it for their secondary school age pupils, so these are kids who are 12 years and over, and it became increasingly clear that perhaps there was an opportunity there to bring news to a younger audience, and to do so in print, which seemed counterintuitive at the time, but all of us who work on the magazine, and all of those who are involved in the development of it, appreciate that tangible quality of a paper magazine.

The experience of reading on paper is so very different to reading on a screen, and it’s increasingly the case now, so perhaps we’re a little bit ahead of ourselves back in 2015. Parents now are realizing that screen time is addictive, that it can be counterproductive. It doesn’t have to be an either-or situation, but that there are real benefits to children not spending quite so much time on screen, so we felt they would appreciate that offer of an alternative to the screen.

For children, because most of us readers are subscribers, it’s something they own, when you look at something on screen, you don’t own it, it’s fleeting, it’s gone, and you can get lost quite easily as well. Also, you are not experiencing the same depth. Finally there’s something around the way a print magazine is curated, that thought that goes into which story goes where, which picture goes where, how a child experiences a page, which is very different to the on-screen experience, which is good in its own right and has many benefits, but this idea of something being put together with real care and thought as to how a child will read and see and experience what we’re giving to them.

Samir Husni: When you launched the magazine, when the first issue came out, was it an instant success?

Anna Bassi: Well, we had about 5,000 subscribers before we launched, we’d marketed it exclusively through The Week magazine in the UK, and when we launched, we thought that most of our readers would be the children of  The Week readers, but as it turned out, it was a bit of a word-of-mouth success, those early subscribers were real advocates for the magazine and shared it with their friends who bought it for their parents.

The first issue was a launch into the unknown, because there was a lot of rhetoric around kids not loving print and why would they want to know about the news, that’s just for adults.  But that was also part of the reason why we launched, that there was an assumption that news is just for grown-ups, but actually children do see and hear the news, whether it’s an overheard conversation or they might have heard something on the radio or on the TV, and sometimes having that partial information is worse than having no information, so our thought was we can take control of this and we can create news that is made for children, and that didn’t mean that we wouldn’t address important or complicated or serious issues, it just meant that we would do it in a way that was very clear for our readers, like a conversation with them.

One of the principles of the magazine is not to be a teacher, it’s a conversation. We’re trying to have a conversation with the child, we’re trying to meet them where they are, and if anything, we’re the slightly smarter, older sibling of our average aged 10-year-old reader.

Our first issue put us to the test.  We planned a wonderful celebration launch issue, and in fact the week before we launched the magazine, there were a series of terrible terror attacks in Paris.  We had to tear up our plans and lead with that as our cover story, which was very difficult to do, but it also meant that we very quickly had to live up to the promise that we’d made to ourselves and to our new subscribers, that we wouldn’t shy away from the difficult stuff.

We quickly were able to establish the blueprint for telling those sorts of stories, which we’ve unfortunately had to use many times since, but it’s been enormously helpful.

Samir Husni: There are similarities between the launch of The Week Junior in the UK and The Week Junior in the US that was ready to launch when Covid hit…

Anna Bassi: Terrible echoes of it. The same thing happened, we were working away, preparing for that first issue to launch. We wheeled out the celebration cover that we planned for the UK launch, and again, it all had to be torn up and started all over.

There’s something about launching into an adverse situation. It pulls teams together, and it clarifies the purpose of the magazine. Many parents here in the UK and then obviously later in the US were incredibly grateful to The Week Junior for being that voice of calm and clarity in a somewhat kind of chaotic and catastrophic environment.

Samir Husni: So those 10 years, has it been a walk in a rose garden or you had some challenges?

Anna Bassi: There have been loads of challenges, but it’s been, I should say it’s been great fun more than anything else. It’s just an honor and a privilege to do something like this, to create a magazine for children.

There have been many challenges and obviously the news agenda has been difficult around the world. There have been conflicts, pandemics, and political upheavals. I don’t think there’s ever a week when there isn’t a story that we really have to sit quietly with before we can begin to tell it.

Covid was both a challenge and an opportunity because we all had to retreat to our homes with our laptops and find a new way of working, we’d always worked together in an office prior to that, we also had to rip up all the plans we had for content that we planned around live events and interactive experiences and places that kids could go to and completely redraw our planning for the whole year and base that around what can you do from your home or within a very small local environment.

One of the things that we launched in 2020 was our summer of reading campaign, which we knew that that summer many kids were not going to be going anywhere much further than their back garden or the local park, there would not be holidays, experiences would be limited, and books present that opportunity to escape the everyday, to get out of your world, to meet new people, to find new places.

We launched a summer of reading campaign encouraging children to read through the summer and tell us about what they’ve been reading. That was a challenge that became an opportunity that became a success. We ran it for four years here in the UK, I think it’s still running in the US. The only reason we stopped running it here in the UK is because we launched our own children’s book awards and that then took the place of the summer of reading challenge.

Samir Husni: You had so many extensions, you’re not limited just to the weekly magazine, can you tell me about those extensions?

Anna Bassi:  We have a lot of extensions. We’ve been very busy. The first extension was the launch of The Week Junior Science and Nature magazine in 2018.  That’s a monthly magazine here in the UK that was born out of the revelation from research that we’d done with our readers that what they really wanted more of was more science and more animals, so we thought why not launch a magazine that’s just all about science and animals, so that’s now entering its seventh year.

We launched a puzzle magazine in late 2019, unfortunately that didn’t survive the pandemic, it wasn’t a subscription magazine, it was run on newsstands sales and that collapsed during the lockdowns. We launched a podcast in 2019 called The Week Junior show, which is still released every week, we just recorded our 10th birthday episode this morning.

We have a book publishing deal with Bloomsbury in the UK and internationally.  We’ve so far published five books with them. We’ve published two novelty gift books.  We’ve published two guides so far; a guide to the environment and a guide to politics, and we’ve got money and sports coming out next year.

We launched our book awards which we’ve been running now since 2023. We held our third book awards event at the end of September this year and that’s become a huge industry gathering now. That’s a children’s book publishing world here in the UK, and it’s been enormous fun to develop and launch it with the help of the events team at Future (The Week Junior’s publisher).

What else is there? Of course, we launched in the US in 2020. We have newsletters, we have endless ideas, we have a digital edition, we’re still playing around with social media and seeing what more we can do there with video and so on.  There’s still plenty more to come.

Samir Husni: You sound very positive on the future.

Anna Bassi: I am.

Samir Husni: Do you think we are seeing an increase in print? We’ve seen a lot of print magazines coming to the marketplace more than last year and the year before.  Suddenly people are rediscovering print. Do you think that trend will continue or is just a nostalgic fad?

Anna Bassi: I think it will continue.  I feel very positive about it.

There’s a return to valuing, to go back to what I was saying in the beginning, something that’s tangible. You see the same thing happening with music. The sales of vinyl and CDs are going up. My own children like collecting vinyl and CDs and they like paper as well, so I feel positive about it.

Although the magazine market, and I don’t know what the situation is in the US, but certainly here in the UK, the number of magazines is fewer. Several companies have closed and a lot of titles have closed over the years. Those that are left, there’s a passion for them and there’s a recognition that if you can produce something that’s of a high quality, which The Week Junior is, and you invest in making something that is genuinely worth having, people will be prepared to pay for it and they will value it. There’s a renaissance coming. I’m very excited about it.

Samir Husni: If somebody comes to you and said, Anna, I want to start a new magazine. What advice would you give them?

Anna Bassi: Do your research, know your audience, respect your audience, I think is key.

Think about what they care about, make sure that you’re really feeding their interests, make sure that what you do can be trusted. Trust is a big and important thing these days, especially in the time of fake news and AI and all the rest of it. So do it well.

If you’re a publisher, be prepared to invest in it. These things aren’t cheap. And if you’re going to do it well, you have to be prepared to spend money to do it well and it will pay back.

Samir Husni: Excellent. So, tell me, is there any question I needed to ask you that I didn’t ask you so far?

Anna Bassi: I can tell you a little bit about the way The Week Junior has been designed, which is interesting and important and has been a factor in our success as well.

When we launched here in the UK, we launched into a very busy marketplace. At that time there were many, many children’s magazines. The newsstands were an absolute riot of color.

Many magazines had cover mounts with plastic toys and characters, Disney magazines, Thomas the Tank Engine. So a very crowded place. And we launched with a very simple magazine with no cover mounts, which didn’t have a brand that was recognizable to kids.

And it wasn’t a kind of a riot inside, in the same way as many of those magazines are. Many of them, their design, they look beautiful. They’re very appealing.

They’re obviously very brand led as well. And what we knew we needed to do to be different, but also to be useful, was to make a magazine that was genuinely accessible. So, it is designed to be read.

The way the pages are laid out is very deliberate. It’s about being able to navigate that page easily. You know where it begins and where it ends.

There are also multiple entry points to every single article. There are fun facts, and there are sidebars, and there are boxes. And all of those are there to help lure in the child who may be the reluctant reader.

The child that doesn’t want to read something long, but they might read something that’s short and funny. And then maybe that will tempt them to read something else and get more involved.

We also consulted guidelines around designing printed materials for people who are dyslexic. So we chose the fonts very carefully.

And the fact that most of our type is black on white, or a very light tinted background, is also led by that set of guidelines. So everything that we’ve done, every word is obviously incredibly carefully thought about. Every picture is very carefully thought about.

The layout itself is fundamental. That’s the secret sauce.  It might look plain to eyes that are accustomed to other children’s magazines, but it’s read.

It has been read since day one by kids whose parents will tell us, my child doesn’t like reading, or my child has always struggled with reading. They love reading Junior.

I’ve been working in children’s magazines for almost 30 years now. I’ve been through all of that I’ve done, I’ve made those magazines that are a riot of color with crazy typography, and things splattered all over the place. I look back at it now, And I think, I thought I was doing the right thing. But I wasn’t helping any children to read.

Samir Husni: If I come one evening to your home unannounced, what do I catch Anna doing, reading a book, watching TV, cooking, having a glass of wine?

Anna Bassi: All the above.

But also, two years ago, I moved into the house that I’m in now. And it’s been an enormous renovation job. So you’d probably find me if I’m not cooking, eating, drinking wine, or watching TV, or reading a book, which I don’t really do enough of. I’m usually scouring auction sites and eBay, and furniture recycling schemes for pieces of furniture that I can pick up and place in my house.

Samir Husni: And what keeps you up at night these days?

Anna Bassi: What keeps me up at night? Not so much these days.  Sometimes the news keeps me up at night, I do worry.

Whenever a big and upsetting news story breaks, I wonder, how are we going to do this? How are we going to tell it? Are we going to tell it? That will keep me awake at night. And then in a positive way, I guess I can be kept awake with ideas, new ideas for doing new things in new ways.

Samir Husni: Thank you.