The past 12 months have seen a large spike in the time Australians spend engaging with news media. Nielsen recently recorded a 43 per cent increase in the amount of time Australians spent consuming digital news in 2020, compared to the previous year. Despite the common notion that kids are largely disengaged from mainstream news, it turns out they’ll engage in just about any news story - if it’s told in the right way.

An ABC Education survey asked young Aussie about their news consumption between September and October in 2020. It found 84 per cent of Australians, aged between 10 and 17, rated the importance of regularly engaging with news as “somewhat important” or “very important”. Kids News’ Editor, Kamahl Cogdon, told Telum Media that kids also have opinions on issues in the news, particularly when these stories are covered in a way that appeals to them.

Telum spoke with three media professionals who produce news for the nation's youth market, to find out the top things you should know when producing news for kids.

Kids engage in all stories. They just need to be told in the right way.
A journalist’s role is to communicate news in a way that’s easily understood by their target audience, and creating news for kids is no different. Saffron Howden, author of new book "Kid Reporter: The Secret to Breaking News", started in the youth news market as the Founder and Editor of the now-ceased Crinkling News.

Crinkling covered everything from politics, world news and the environment, to sports, technology, arts and culture. She told Telum that kids are "endlessly curious" and want to be part of the solutions to issues they read about. “The key [for Crinkling News] was to make stories relevant to our audience, so we included plenty of young people's voices and used references, experiences and anecdotes relevant to kids' lives,” Saffron said.

Sarah Larsen, a Producer at ABC Television’s Behind the News (BTN), agreed that young readers will engage in any news story that is “told in the right way”, regardless of the event or issue at its core. Her team's goal is to keep their content relevant and entertaining, and she said children tend to engage the most with stories that directly impact or empower them.

According to Kamahl, Kids News’ highest audience engagement figures come from animal stories, sport and space content, and controversial news. The Kids News team use age-appropriate language to help their readers understand what they're reading, and they also provide a glossary at the end of each story to explain any challenging words used in the articles.

News for kids should be produced with the classroom in mind.
Kamahl always tries to maintain a balance of different content on the Kids News homepage that includes stories that can provide educational value. For this reason, the site often publishes stories that generally complement the school curriculum of its audience, which are students in grades two through eight. “These stories provide a real-life example of what the students are learning, so they are getting to see their education in action”, Kamahl said.

Stories that relate to school curriculums are also popular at Behind the News. The BTN team regularly visits Australian classrooms to understand how and where the programme is watched, and the types of content children and their teachers would like to see more or less of. An annual teachers’ survey is also conducted to help the team improve their product. “Last year, we had a 40 per cent increase in viewership, which was probably because more families were using the show as an educational tool during lockdown”, Sarah said. “BTN was helping kids to understand and contextualise a huge story that was affecting all of their lives.”

“Bad news” stories are okay, within reason
Covering a story that could upset or worry a young audience is one of the more difficult parts of creating content for kids. At Crinkling News, Saffron said she felt a duty to cover high-profile “bad news” stories, such as conflict, crime or natural disasters, that she expected her audience would have heard about in their daily lives. This way, the issue or event could be broken down and explained in an age-appropriate way. An advising child psychologist was on hand to help the team when needed. “The key to this coverage was providing enough information to dispel fear and confusion, providing a space for our readers to ask questions, and then focussing on the solutions and how our audience might be able to help”, she said.

Sarah said kids are likely to pick up on a prominent “bad news” story in one way or another, so the best approach is to provide a reliable space for them to explore it. “We try to offer kids and parents a safe place to get information, which answers their questions while avoiding some of the more disturbing images and descriptions that they might come across on an adult news service,” she said.

The BTN team avoid covering news they believe will be upsetting to children, especially if there’s nothing they can add to help kids understand the issue further. They look for positive angles when cover a darker story. For example, the team may focus on the efforts of first responders and communities coming together when reporting on a terrorist attack or natural disaster.

Kamahl said some stories, like violent crimes and accidents with fatalities, aren’t generally appropriate for children to consume, though she acknowledges that sometimes they do need to be covered. “We ran a story on the Black Lives Matter protests last year. Rather than focusing on the violence and destruction that often made the 'adult' news, we looked at why these protests were taking place and the history behind them in a very straightforward and factual way," she said. "That's not to say we didn't acknowledge the violence, but we put it in context.”

Exposing kids to the news cycle is extremely important. It shapes their worldview and development.
Kamahl advocates for encouraging kids to read, and said getting kids to consume news and current affairs content is even more important. According to Kamahl, kids can “consume news without realising it” through social media. “It’s vital they learn to identify reliable news sources and think critically”, she said.

Sarah is a firm believer in teaching kids to approach news critically and said the proliferation of fake news and misinformation can spread like wildfire across social media. Unfortunately, this is the space where many young people access their news. The ABC’s 2020 survey found that just 43 per cent of young Aussie respondents viewed the news media as a reliable source of information. An online survey, conducted by The Conversation last year, found just 36 per cent of young people felt they could confidently distinguish between fake and authentic news. Sarah said today's children are tomorrow's leaders and voters. "If we can encourage them from an early age to engage with the news and take an interest in the world around them, we’re helping to build a better democracy", she said.

According to Saffron, children must understand the role of a “quality and professional news media in democracy”, given the massive amount of misinformation society is exposed to on a daily basis. “We're doing a great disservice to kids if we don't equip them with this basic life skill: To become informed and empowered citizens,” she said.