CBBC Newsround: How do you tell difficult stories to children?

Thursday 6 August sees the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It was an event that shaped the world for everyone growing up in its aftermath, including children today. But how do you go about telling such a difficult story for children? It’s a question that I get asked often as Editor of Newsround, and it’s a question that the programme team wrestle with on a daily basis: how do we explain a complex and sometimes troubling world in a safe and appropriate manner for our young audience?

Fortunately, at Newsround we are always building on the experience of our predecessors, stretching back to 1972, when the BBC launched the world’s first ever children’s TV news service. Newsround has never shied away from tackling the difficult stories of the day, whether it was commercial whaling in the Seventies, the Challenger Shuttle Disaster in 1986, the 9/11 attacks or more recently tackling bereavement, natural disasters and the war in Afghanistan through our Newsround specials. What marked out all of these examples is the way that Newsround brought these stories to children in a way that was both comprehensible and understood the special responsibility that comes with reporting for young people.

Today, we follow the same principles. The first question we ask ourselves is whether a story affects children or is important to them. If it is, we look at how we might be able to tell it in a way which minimises any distress. We are particularly careful about distressing footage, as it is the thing most likely to upset children but for some stories the only available footage can be upsetting. One way of dealing with this is by using animation, this is something we have employed in our film about Hiroshima to tell the story of a survivor of the attacks. It is also something we use on breaking stories like the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Animation is not an easy process but it does allow us to give children essential information about what is going on in the world in a way which is right for them.

Context is also extremely important to us. We are aware that in many cases we are telling a story to an audience which is hearing it for the first time, so it is important for us to properly explain the background to events. It is something we have been careful to do in our film on Hiroshima. 

We also try to provide reassurance to our young audience, wherever possible. Context can also have an important role to play here. Many children can gain reassurance just from a simple explanation that events like terror attacks and plane crashes are rare and unlikely to affect them directly. For a generation used to finding out information online, our guides to major stories like the Syria conflict aim to answer the questions they might have about issues that are troubling them. We also have an online guide to help children who are upset by the news, wherever they have heard it. 

Finally, although we take our role in reporting difficult stories to children very seriously, it’s also important to let children know that the world is not just one filled with difficult and troubling events. It’s also a world filled with inspiration, wonder and downright joy. We aim to reflect all of that in our content on Newsround.

Hiroshima: A Newsround Special is on CBBC at 5.30pm on Thursday 6th August

 Lewis James is Editor, Newsround