August 17, 2011

To Rupert Murdoch: Honor Books, Too

Dear Readers,

A quick update on my campaign to get Fox-TV to add a books category to the Teen Choice Awards: On Wednesday, August 10, I sent a letter to Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of Newscorp – Fox’s parent company. I also sent letters to every member of Newcorp’s board, top Newscorp and Fox executives including Roger Ailes, and Newscorp’s Public Relations and Investor Relations heads. Here’s a copy of the letter that went to Rupert Murdoch.

August 10, 2011

Mr. Rupert Murdoch
Chairman and CEO
News Corporation
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY  10036

Dear Mr. Murdoch,

My name is Jennifer Donnelly. I'm an award-winning young adult author (Revolution, A Northern Light), who discovered this past Monday, to my dismay, that The Teen Choice Awards – a Fox creation – has no award whatsoever for books. 

Movies, TV, sports, fashion, comedians; you name it, they get honored. No book award. Not one. It’s shameful.

Today’s readers are tomorrow’s leaders, and to fail to recognize and promote books’ importance to teens in an enterprise as high-profile as the TCA is to do an entire generation a great disservice. Countless studies on literacy show that reading is a crucial factor in teenagers’ academic achievement.

With the Teen Choice Awards, Fox has a unique and powerful opportunity to do good by its young viewers by impressing upon them the importance of reading. By making books an awards category, Fox can generate for literature the same kind of excitement it sparks for music, film, and television.

Would you consider helping me in my effort to persuade Fox TV to add a books category to the Teen Choice Awards? Surely with a word from you, this will be the last TCA that doesn’t bother telling teens that the characters they love so much -- characters like Harry Potter, or Bella and Edward from the Twilight series -- all came to life in the pages of a book. 

With best regards,

Jennifer Donnelly

Thanks again for your support in this. Let's get books recognized by the TCA!

With best wishes,

ON FACEBOOK:

ON TWITTER: