NewsDepth is one of only a very few news programs produced especially for school children on commercial, cable, or public television in the United States. The series is designed to inspire a student's obligation to become an informed, involved citizen and to develop good habits of news analysis. Care is taken to gear content, pacing, and vocabulary to elementary and junior high school students, but the facts are never distorted to make the news more comprehensible to children.
Since its inception more than thirty years ago, NewsDepth has clearly demonstrated high technical standards, originality, and commitment to educational achievement. NewsDepth has earned the prestigious "Advancement of Learning through Broadcasting Award" from the National Educational Association and an OEBIE Award in the Educational Services Category from the Ohio Educational Telecommunications Network Commission. NewsDepth has also been nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of Children/Youth Programs - Regularly Scheduled.
NewsDepth represents a unique television production partnership between public, commercial, and cable television. WVIZ/PBS produces NewsDepth in conjunction with NewsChannel 5, the ABC affiliate in Cleveland, and CNN, the cable news network based in Atlanta. NewsChannel provides one of its own professional news anchors as the host of NewsDepth. Being associated with a highly respected news organization such as TV 5 further reinforces the journalistic and editorial integrity of this instructional television program. Some of the news footage used on NewsDepth is provided through an innovative arrangement with CNN. As part of our agreement with CNN, WVIZ/PBS records CNN news stories that are received via satellite. WVIZ/PBS is one of few public television stations in the country which have been able to negotiate such an arrangement with CNN. Other stories and footage are obtained from NewsChannel 5 and CONUS, a midwest regional news service.
What Does NewsDepth Hope to Achieve?
Each NewsDepth episode strives to introduce students to the world around them by helping them to:
- Learn about the various ways in which television brings news of the world, country, or community to the viewer;
- Recognize world leaders and other newsmakers, and to understand their role in current events;
- Identify the basic elements of a news story: who, what, where, when, why and how;
- Examine the kinds of information we obtain from television in such areas as history, geography, and politics, and to encourage library and Internet research for more information about the topic;
- Understand important terms and phrases in the news;
- Locate places that are in the news and to explore world geography; Read charts, graphs, and maps;
- See that news is a part of an ongoing process and that a historical perspective is needed to understand daily events;
- Develop basic research and listening skills;
- Learn about television news, the parts of a news program, and the terminology of television; and
- Differentiate fact from opinion.
Each NewsDepth program consists of a presentation of:
- the week's top news stories;
- feature stories that have great appeal to children in grades 3-8;
- an Ohio news feature called Ohio Headlines (NewsDepth is the only weekly educational newscast that provides a focused segment on important news stories in Ohio);
- weekly interactive features:
- NewsViews, a segment where student letters to WVIZ/PBS commenting on NewsDepth news stories are read on the air. On average, 8,000 letters are received by mail and e-mail each year, and more than 100 are read on air.
- NewsQuiz, where three questions are presented to the students regarding the current program. Many of the questions are cross-curricular in nature, requiring students to solve a math or science question. The answers are given during the following week's show.
