RICKY:Hi everyone, I'm Ricky this is Newsround live on CBBC this Saturday afternoon.
TINA DAHELEY:'Newsround is CBBC's very own daily news bulletin. It's been keeping its audience up to date with the news for 45 years.'
MALE REPORTER #1:Hello again. A split second leap to safety
MALE REPORTER #1:has stopped the British Transglobe expedition from ending in tragedy.
TINA DAHELEY:Newsround began all those years ago
TINA DAHELEY:and the BBC recognised that it should present news differently to other programs. It reports in a way that's appropriate for its audience.
RICKY:Welcome. Welcome to Newsround Tina. How are you doing?
TINA DAHELEY:'Ricky is a reporter for Newsround.'
RICKY:And yeah, this is where we present all our bulletins every day.
TINA DAHELEY:So how do you make news stories appropriate for a young audience?
RICKY:Well first we have to know who our audience is. Now, Newsround is aimed at six to twelve-year-olds. There's a huge difference between what a six-year-old understands and what a twelve-year-old understands.
TINA DAHELEY:So how do you make sure your news can be understood by everyone?
RICKY:Well we don’t assume any knowledge at all.
RICKY:We explain every single aspect of a story. Even when it comes to a really big story like when Donald Trump won the US election.
FEMALE REPORTER #1:Hello everyone, well welcome to Washington D.C. the capital of America. Now today–
RICKY:So we explain that Washington D.C. is the capital of America. We have to assume that this could be the first time our audience has heard of Washington.
LEAH:Hi I'm Leah. The huge news today is that people in America have elected this man, Donald Trump to be their next president.
RICKY:So here we explain very simply that the American people have chosen a new leader because some children may not even know how an election works. We even refer to a picture of Donald Trump because we can't assume that our audience knows who he is or even what he looks like.
TINA DAHELEY:And the presenter speaks in a friendly conversational way.
RICKY:Yeah, we use informal language,
RICKY:short concise sentences so children can clearly understand the story we're talking about and then they can repeat it to their mates.
LEAH:I'm Leah, the huge news today is that–
TINA DAHELEY:I like the use of the adjective "Huge". It tells us that this news story's a really big deal.
RICKY:Yeah we try to use impacting words
RICKY:that pack lots of information into our reports.
LEAH:'The billionaire businessman beat his rival, Hilary Clinton It's been a long and tough fight for the most powerful job on the planet.'
RICKY:So here Donald Trump is described as a "billionaire".
RICKY:The election campaign is described as "a long and tough fight" and the role of president is described as "the most powerful job on the planet."
TINA DAHELEY:Ah I see, so these describing words work really hard to cram lots of information into the report. They tell us so much more than simply saying "Donald Trump beat his rival to become US president."
RICKY:It does, the adjectives billionaire, powerful, long and tough
RICKY:give context to the story. They help explain what happened before Trump's big election win.
TINA DAHELEY:Opinions are really useful in news. Does Newsround use interviews and Vox pops in their stories?
RICKY:Yes, we try to speak to children and young people where we can. This is their news program so it's really important that we reflect their views and opinions. So just like grown-up news, we get opinions from both sides of the argument. We spoke to children who supported Donald Trump and we spoke to kids who supported Hilary Clinton.
RICKY:Look at this Tina, we had these puppets specially commissioned for Newsround. There you have Hillary, here's Donald Trump.
TINA DAHELEY:Hi Hillary.
RICKY:I know what do you think?
TINA DAHELEY:Donald Trump looks great. Yeah, I mean they're great likenesses.
FEMALE IN RED AND BLACK COAT:If this was Hillary I'd say "Good job, keep up the good work. You'll be president soon."
FEMALE IN BLACK JACKET:You look like a great president. You'll do great for our country and I'd vote for you.
FEMALE IN GREEN T-SHIRT:I just don't think that he'd be a good president. He's nothing like Hillary because she knows what she's doing.
RICKY:We like to do stuff like this, so have puppets made or use animation to try and bring our stories to life and make them a little bit more engaging. Have a look at this clip now. We use animation when it came to Donald Trump's inauguration.
FEMALE IN REPORTER #2:'The president lives in the White House but the important bit today happens at the Capitol. That's where Trump will be sworn in as president and take an oath promising to do the best job he can. Then he'll make a speech called the Inaugural Address.'
TINA DAHELEY:I love how you make it look like a comic book.
RICKY:Yeah at Newsround we like to break the rules when it comes to traditional news storytelling. We think that's really important because it makes the stories a little bit more interesting for our audience. Just look at how BBC news covered the same story.
FEMALE REPORTER #3:'Dawn breaks in Washington as Donald Trump prepares to be sworn in as America's 45th president.'
TINA DAHELEY:That was so much more formal and less fun than Newsround.
RICKY:That's right and as you can see just being here in the studio with these guys Newsround can be a lot of fun.
TINA DAHELEY:We've seen how Newsround uses language that's appropriate for the audience.
TINA DAHELEY:'The presenters don't assume knowledge
TINA DAHELEY:'and they explain stories in a way that children can understand. Describing words are a great way of telling the audience'
TINA DAHELEY:'more about a story and music, animation and graphics are used to help make news stories fun.'
TINA DAHELEY:So, it's goodbye from me, and it's goodbye from Donald and Hillary. See you next time.
This short film, first published in 2018, is for teachers and review is recommended before use in class.
Tina Daheley speaks to reporter Ricky Boleto at the CBBC Newsround studios and asks how he makes news stories appropriate for six to twelve year-olds.
They talk about the importance of explaining everything in a story, and not assuming that the audience knows anything about the details.
Using an example of a news item about Donald Trump winning the US election, Tina and Ricky explain how Newsround reporters simplify complex news stories for their audience.
They also discuss the use of friendly and informal language and short concise sentences that are easy for children to understand.
They then focus on the use of specific words in the bulletin, and look at the effect of specific adjectives.
The effect of words with impact and describing words are shown through real examples.
The clip also focuses on the use of opinions and vox pops in Newsround and explores how interviews with children and young people are used to reflect and appeal to the young audience.
As with adult news, both sides of an argument are presented.
They look at the use of puppets and animation to bring Newsround’s stories to life.
A comparison between the Newsround and main news handling of the Donald Trump inauguration story is used to highlight how the programmes present the same story in different ways.
This clip is form the series Making the News.
Teacher Notes
Watch an episode of CBBC Newsround.
On a second and third viewing, ask students to take notes about the main features of the show – note how many articles there are, the type of music used, the colours of the set, the types of people interviewed, the language used.
This would work well as a group task, with different groups focusing on different aspects of the programme.
Give students a bullet point summary of a current news story and ask them to create a report that would be suitable for the CBBC Newsround programme.
Ask students to transcribe two news reports – one aimed at adults and one aimed at young people.
They should explain the differences in sentence structures and word complexity.
Curriculum Notes
This series is relevant for teaching English and Media Studies at Key Stage 3 in England, Northern Ireland and Wales and at Level 3 in Scotland.
