Newsround
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| newsround | |
|---|---|
 The Newsround titles received a slight refresh in May 2006. |
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| Genre | Children's news magazine |
| Starring | Ellie Crisell Adam Fleming Lizzie Greenwood Sonali Gudka Laura Jones Lizo Mzimba Gavin Ramjaun |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Georgie Bevan Simon Goretzki Sinéad Rocks |
| Running time | 10 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | BBC One, CBBC |
| Original run | 4 April 1972 – present |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Newsround Extra Sportsround |
Newsround (originally called John Craven's Newsround, before the departure of Craven) is a BBC children's news programme, which has run continuously since 4 April 1972, and was the world's first television news magazine aimed specifically at children.
Contents |
[edit] History
Originally called John Craven's Newsround, it was mostly presented by John Craven between 4 April 1972 and 22 June 1989, though presenters including Roger Finn and Helen Rollason also presented during the 1980s.
On Craven's departure, the show was renamed Newsround, and its presenters who regularly rotate have included Juliet Morris, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Julie Etchingham, Chris Rogers, Kate Sanderson, Matthew Price, and Becky Jago. Regular reporters on the programme, who have also presented it, include Paul McDowell, Paul Welsh and Terry Baddoo. For over 25 years, it was usually broadcast on BBC One at 5 p.m.
Newsround was the first BBC television programme to break the news of the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger on 28 January 1986. As the event was shown during the opening titles, it is often erroneously stated that the tragedy happened live on air, but it in fact happened about fifteen minutes earlier. This edition was presented by Roger Finn, who had only recently joined the programme.
[edit] Current format and presenters
The Newsround edition broadcast at 5:25 pm on CBBC One has Ellie Crisell as its main anchor, with Lizo Mzimba taking Ellie's main role when she is absent. All of the presenters make reports. On the CBBC Channel, the Newsround bulletins are read by Sonali Gudka and Gavin Ramjaun. The other reporters are Laura Jones and Adam Fleming. Lizzie Greenwood is a reporter for Sportsround, Newsround's sister show.
Newsround's editor is Tim Levell with deputy editor Sinead Rocks. The main TV producer is Paul Arnold. The main online producer is Clare Youell.
[edit] Newsround Extra
A variation on the regular format of Newsround is a series of short (typically ten-minute) documentary films broadcast under the title Newsround Extra, which have been a regular feature since the late 1970s. There are two or three series of these documentaries during the year, which replace the regular bulletins on one day of the week (usually Monday, although sometimes on Fridays, particularly during the 1980s).
There was a Newsround Extra on 1 December 2006 called The Wrong Trainers[1] a rather dark film consisting of six short animations dealing with child poverty and related issues. In one of the presentations Chris says the Government is not spending money as wisely as they should be. Afterwards, there was a linked BBCi special following up the issues. Newsround - The Wrong Trainers won the Royal Television Society Award for best children's programme 2006[2].
[edit] Newsround Showbiz
Newsround Showbiz was a weekly round-up of showbiz news which was aired every Saturday and Sunday at 3.50pm on the CBBC Channel. It was hosted by Lizzie, Adam, Rachel or Thalia who were regular Newsround presenters. The show only lasted 10 minutes but was packed full of celebrity gossip. Newsround Showbiz was originally called Newsround Lite, and ran from 2003-2005.
[edit] Newsround Investigates
Newsround Investigates is a special half-hour documentary series for CBBC, taking an in-depth look at issues affecting children’s lives. The first edition on May 8, 2006 investigated the subject of arson in schools.
[edit] Sportsround
In September 2005, a new spin-off of Newsround was launched, entitled Sportsround. There had been rumour that this latest series of bulletins, aired on BBC One and later BBC Two, had been launched to encourage British children to become engaged in more sporting activities. This is, obviously, to combat Britain's growing child obesity rate, and should also encourage more children to take up sports in time to compete in the 2012 Olympics. The show is presented by Jake Humphrey.
[edit] Newsround on the web
For some time now Newsround has had its own website as part of the main CBBC web site, featuring:
- The Latest News Headlines, grouped into the relevant sections (e.g. World, UK, Sci-Tech, etc.)
- An RSS feed for each of the sections (e.g. an RSS feed for World news, UK news, etc.)
- A games section, with many Flash games.
- Message boards for different topics (e.g. Current News, Doctor Who, etc.)
- A voting section, where users can vote on different popular topics such as favourite film, etc.
- Lots of quizzes
- Competitions
- A blog by the presenters.
In February, an online video podcast was released called And Finally [3]. This would be a summary of the entire week showing selected stories. There would be a new version every week but at time of writing, there is only one version. There is also one for Sportsround called Action Replay [4]. This can either be downloaded as an MPEG-4 Part 14 file or as a podcast which includes both And Finally and Action Replay.
[edit] Newsround Quiz
From Monday 18th December 2006 to Friday 5th January 2007 digital satellite and Freeview viewers could access the free and interactive Newsround Review of The Year Quiz by pressing the red button on their remote control. Viewers watched video questions and then selected their answer by pressing the coloured keys on their remote control. On Freeview the quiz was broadcast on BBCi channel 302.
[edit] Criticisms
The programme has been criticized by young people, on its own CBBC message boards, as being "patronizing." In one instance, a caption banner read "Chechnians are from Chechnya" and also "David Tennant: The 10th Doctor, He is the Tenth Person to play Doctor Who" (the latter clause should have been avoided).
From a diversity perspective, Newsround discriminates against LGBT people by not including relevant issues or stories[5]For instance, when Matt Lucas and Kevin McGee tied the knot in December 2006, the story was quite widely reported in the press but it went unreported on Newsround. Posts about gay rights have been removed from Newsround's messageboards[6]
Also, the programme's website appears to discriminate against older children. It frequently reports news stories and asks for people's thoughts on the stories. Although they say that they will try to put up as many replies as possible, very few replies from 14 and 15 year olds are published.[7]
Newsround seems to include a humorous story nearly every day, usually towards the end of the show. This takes up space which could be used to cover a more serious or interesting topic. However people must remember the show is aimed at children!
Newsround's editor, Tim Levell, was involved in commissioning a filmed report about a 9 year old bullfighter in Mexico. A number of people were angry that the BBC had carried the item, and two viewers aired their complaints on the 12 January 2007 edition of BBC's Newswatch programme. One complained about "portraying this medieval barbaric ritual as a cultural form of entertainment." Mr Levell explained his reasoning on Newswatch. He said that children in the UK would find the 9 year old Mexican bullfighter "absolutely fascinating."[8]
[edit] Former presenters
- John Craven April 1972- 22 June 1989
- Paul McDowell 1979?-1985
- Roger Finn 1985-1991
- Helen Rollason 1986-1990
- Juliet Morris 1990- October 1994
- Krishnan Guru-Murthy 1991-October 1994
- Julie Etchingham October 1994- Febraury 1998
- Chris Rogers October 1994- 1999
- Kate Sanderson July 1997- September 2001
- Matthew Price 1999- 2002
- Becky Jago September 2001- February 2003
[edit] References
- ^ Newsround Specials:The Wrong Trainers
- ^ "The jury were unanimous in their admiration for a programme that set itself a bold and challenging objective, and achieved it with stunning results. Clever animation, coupled with heart-rendingly real children’s voices, engaged young viewers with child poverty in a meaningful and relevant way."
- ^ CBBC Newsround | TV/Film | Newsround And Finally video podcast. Retrieved on 2007-02-24.
- ^ CBBC Newsround | Sport | Sportsround: Action Replay Video Podcast. Retrieved on 2007-02-24.
- ^ Newsround blog
- ^ The following post was published (In The News) the morning of 28 December 2006 and removed together with published responses the same day. No reason was given for removing the thread: "Gay rights. Messages 1 - 1 of 1 Message 1 - posted by MzKiedis (U6934819) **, Yesterday I know this can be a sensitive subject and i'm probably not going to be allowed to post this thread here, but we were discussing this the other day so i thought i'd see what all you lot think. I thought our society was pretty laid back and accepting of these people, but then i heard that apparently ours is one of the worst for this kind of thing. Even the ancient greeks and many other countries learnt to embrace the minority. I know things have changed since the war etc. when it was a punishable crime, but what do you think? Also what about the meaning of the word changing so much? being used as an insult etc. Would like to hear your views. xxx"
- ^ Data sources for March/April 2006 and December 2006
- ^ BBC Newswatch video. The item on the bullfighting story starts at 5:50 on the video
