Parents' Guide to

NBC News for Universal Kids

By Emily Ashby, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 6+

Brief newscast encourages kids' media literacy awareness.

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A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

Community Reviews

age 5+

Based on 1 parent review

age 5+

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They constantly have network name and count down to next show showing on top and bottom of the screen and then annoying banners that block half the screen randomly.

This title has:

Too much consumerism

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1 ):
Kids say: Not yet rated

Designed to encourage news literacy in kids as young as 6 years old, this series does a decent job selecting content that will be of interest to its intended audience. As such, these aren't hard-hitting or overly opinionated news stories; rather, they're all about cataloging the who, what, where, when, and why and letting viewers make their own calls from there. Even those that delve into hot-button current events like immigration reform and political protest remain mostly hands-off in interpretation, but by condensing complex topics into two-minute presentations, the series greatly oversimplifies them.

NBC News for Universal Kids' biggest challenge is in filling a gap its young audience probably didn't even know existed. Thanks to the internet, kids and tweens have no shortage of information sources (some better than others, of course). With news, videos, and stories literally at their fingertips, a newscast that preselects its content and presents it in short form might not draw crowds among this media-ultraliterate set. Even so, this series gives parents the opportunity to talk about matters of media and reliable news sources with their kids.

TV Details

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