Creating News For Younger Audiences

Few people remember Nick News featuring journalist Linda Ellerbee, but Ellerbee’s philosophy around dealing with children is one that journalists today could take a lesson from. 

“Children deserve so much respect,” Ellerbee says. “They’re not dumber, they’re just younger and shorter. What I learned from hosting ‘Nick News’ is that the old should listen to the young, and the young should listen to the old. We all have something to offer.” 

However, there is a notable dearth of news sources for younger audiences in today’s journalistic landscape. 

So, what does it take to pump out news that’s both informative and effective for children and how can journalists adapt their process to create content for younger audiences?

Here are some valuable tips.

CONVERSATIONS WITH KIDS

This was a big hallmark of Nick News: Ellerbee did not just report on the story; she invited children to share their thoughts and feelings on it as well. Most famously, Ellerbee’s September 11th, 2001 episode featured a roundtable discussion on the unfathomable terror attacks upon the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York City. Kids cannot relate to adults on paper or in person the same way that they can relate to other kids, so centering the feelings and thoughts of the children in the community is a really effective way to make sure your news is getting to younger audiences.

ASK QUESTIONS, BUT WITH CLEAR GOALS

On some levels, journalism is an education—but critical thinking skills are at variable levels of development during childhood. Just explaining the problem itself is not enough to inspire children to react to that information, but providing clear steps, solutions, and guided thought experiments so that you can help develop those critical thinking skills will be essential to your writing.

VISUALS ARE ALWAYS BETTER

Charts, graphs, pictures—anything that can show a physical and concrete piece of information you are trying to communicate will always be of more use to children than sheer concepts. Also, reading levels vary greatly during childhood—especially now, when kids of reading age were negatively impacted by the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

CONNECT WITH EDUCATORS

Journalists and teachers have a LOT in common, and teachers can really be our best friends when trying to come up with new and creative ways to share information with children. Teachers are forced to be creative on a daily basis to teach their students anything from basic concepts like addition and subtraction to complex ideas such as themes found in novels. Educators draw from a wealth of personal resources in order to tailor their educational process for their students’ benefit: that is a skill journalists most definitely do not get a chance to build. Taking advantage of educators as a major resource will also build community, and possibly audiences, for your work.

HIGHLIGHT IMPORTANT THINGS CONCISELY

Why is this news important? Context and brevity is not only a best practice for your general reporting, but you must lean into both when working with information for children. In order for a complete synthesis of the information to occur, you must clearly earmark every piece of your argument, explain it entirely, and say why it matters. Otherwise, kids (and most adults, for that matter) won’t know what to make of the data you’re giving them to interpret.

Working with news for kids isn’t a separate process to working with news for adults, but a bit of a learning curve is most definitely involved. Optimizing your process includes turning best practices on overdrive, and trusting your audience. Just because they’re kids doesn’t mean they’re incapable of understanding, implementing, or responding to your journalism.