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Back in 2017, Caitlin Roper, then an editor at The New York Times Magazine, prepared a slate of story ideas for an important meeting with a consultant. The ideas were for a new print section of the newspaper called The New York Times for Kids, and the consultant was a 13-year-old boy.
Ms. Roper presented the boy, the son of a colleague, with her plan, seeking feedback from her target demographic.
“He read it all and then, with a somber expression, looked up at me, and he said, ‘You should have a story about slime,’” Ms. Roper said.
Beginning with that very first issue, members of the team behind The New York Times for Kids, a monthly section that mimicked the newspaper with National, Science, Sports and other pages made just for kids, took their readers’ opinions seriously. They set out to treat their audience with respect and to create a section that spoke to, not down to, children. With the expertise of the newsroom’s journalists behind them, they covered the topics that children had the most questions about, like homelessness, money and immigration, but also puberty, cake and, yes, slime.
After eight years in print, the final edition of the Kids section appears in Sunday’s newspaper. The Times Magazine, which has housed the project, is undergoing a digital redesign and expansion and is shifting its priorities in order to realize this vision.
Kids’ thoughts and ideas were all over the section’s pages, and their curiosity often led the way. Amber Williams, who led the section from 2018 to 2024, recalled a visit to a school classroom in New York City to talk about opinion writing. She found students using the term “the wall” in conversation, referring to the structure being built along the United States’ southern border at the time. But they weren’t quite sure what it was.
In an interview, Ms. Williams remembered her reaction: “They’ve asked the question, so let’s go at it.” A reporter on the National desk explained what “the wall” was, physically and metaphorically, in the very next issue.
Young readers answered questions, too. Molly Bennet, who has been the editor in charge of the section since 2024, was captivated by the youth fashion trends in the part of Queens, N.Y., where she lived. (Y2K looks were so back.) This inspired a street style article about what children wore to the first day of school.
“It’s important to us to have that finger on the pulse of what our actual readers are into versus what we might think they’re into,” Ms. Bennet said.
And when the section temporarily dropped its mini crossword puzzles during election season last year, Ms. Bennet said her team received a handful of “annoyed emails” from children who wondered where they went. The puzzles resumed soon after.
Visuals also brought kids into the fold. Deb Bishop, the design director of The New York Times for Kids, said she knew that illustrations and graphics would be essential to the section’s look and function. Throughout the years, news events and ideas were explained in flow charts, comics, annotated illustrations and games. An issue on anatomy included a diagram of a human body spread across four pages. Teachers have used that printout in classrooms, Ms. Roper said.
The design, like the editorial voice, aimed to respect the audience. “Often, designers don’t want to do kids projects because they’re considered not serious,” Ms. Bishop said. But designs for children don’t have to be all rainbows and smiley faces.
“There’s so much potential,” Ms. Bishop said. “It has to be appropriate, it has to be smart, but it doesn’t have to be typical.”
The New York Times for Kids included articles written by newsroom journalists who typically work on the adult report. Kevin Roose, a technology correspondent, explained blockchains for young readers. Peter Baker, The Times’s chief White House correspondent, wrote about the government. Articles like these, accompanied with eye-catching art, helped the Kids section reach young people who were sometimes trapped between mindless, silly cartoons and tedious, dry homework, Ms. Roper said.
The print section is going away, but the New York Times for Kids Instagram page will live on. Ms. Roper, who has led The Times’s efforts in film, television, events and books since 2023, is looking for other ways to carry on the work.
“I will continue to believe in the mission of talking to kids in this way,” she said.
The post After Eight Years, a Kids Section Says Goodbye appeared first on New York Times.
