The BBC is supposed to inform, educate and entertain. Children's programmes used to do those three things as was clear from the enlightening BBC Four series Children's TV on Trial (see blog on 9 April 2008) However, a once vibrant department has, with a few exceptions, been reduced to a wasteland of mediocrity. Whilst the BBC Trust has been candid in presenting the stark figures of declining audiences, nevertheless it has avoided the wood for the trees - i.e. it has largely failed to investigate whether programme content might have a significant bearing on the decline in reach.

The Trust say:- In terms of delivering the public purposes, we are concerned at the apparent decline in usage of BBC News by young people. We also continue to believe that the BBC could do more to provide output that is original and different and shows fresh and new ideas .... (p.25) It fails to draw the appropriate conclusions from the huge discrepancy in audience reach between CBBC and BBC Switch.

An example, taken from the 1980's Children's TV on Trial, shows that programmes used to be relevant to the needs of kids. Check how the BBC kept in touch with its young audience:-

Narrator: ... television's first agony uncle, Phillip Hodson talked viewers through the serious business of growing up.

(archive film clip) Phillip Hodson: You are still at primary school. You've already finished your puberty. You're only 10, and you've finished. (reads letter) I'm tall and broadly built, but I have to wear a bra.

Narrator: But it wasn't all about hormones and heartache. Uncle Phillip tackled some of the thornier issues of the day.

(archive film clip) Phillip Hodson: Because AIDS is a disease that can kill, because we're afraid of diseases that can kill, and because there's no cure for AIDS - so what happens is that rumours fly and there's more ignorance about AIDS than almost anything else.

And the same programme showed how drama dealt with issues of the day:-

Lee Macdonald (actor from Grange Hill): The issues that were tackled with Grange Hill would be within normal schools anyway - especially comprehensives schools that I was brought up in. You've got bullying, your shoplifting, there was pregnancies within school kids. And I think that was where the stories were so strong and they were taken so seriously....

Steve Woodcock (actor from Grange Hill): We had things like the National Front that you had to contend with, and you'd be going to school with children whose parents were members of the National Front. So yes, Grange Hill was, I think, very true to what was going on at the time ....

What with the recent election successes of the BNP, perhaps it's time for kids' TV programmes to again be honest and forthright. The BNP should be identified as a racist organisation, and therefore beyond the pale. Newsround failed to do this in Adam's report last Monday (see blog 8 June 2009)

BBC Trust Review of services for younger audiences

At last the BBC Trust has had the courage to face up to the truth, at least in part. For example they recognise that BBC Switch on TV has not been very successful, and also that teenagers deserve better news services. Little is said about drama for young teens, although the Trust do acknowledge "that it is important for the BBC to provide older children and teenagers with some targeted output on television."

The Trust Review, published today, includes the following:

The BBC delivers some of its public purposes well to young people but faces challenges to deliver news to them, and to serve teenagers on television. BBC Switch "has not yet reached many teenagers on television. We continue to think that it is important for the BBC to provide older children and teenagers with some targeted output on television."

The Trust regard BBC News’ reach to young people as a very important performance indicator. A decline in the numbers of teenagers watching BBC television has driven an overall fall in BBC reach amongst teenagers. In response to its decline in reach to teenagers, the BBC launched BBC Switch but teenagers’ viewing of Switch on television is still low.

The Trust recognise that BBC Switch is "still an emerging proposition," but their view is that "its performance to date has been variable, with its television programmes in particular not yet reaching high enough volumes of the target audience." In fact the figure given by the Trust is 36,000 in the target age range 12 to 17 (0.8 per cent of the people in this age group)

Politicians aren't exactly flavour of the month, but there is a profession even more deserving of opprobrium. If journalists had been doing their jobs, the country might well be in a better position than it is. It's all very well for financial commentators like Evan Davis and Robert Peston to patiently explain the credit crunch, but we should have been warned years ago about the consequences of unbridled greed.

Greed is the cause of MPs' current plight, and it's also the root cause for the collapse in our economy. Goods are manufactured cheaply in countries where workers have few rights and little pay. All this helped to bring in bigger profits for shareholders, and so the 'economy' appeared to grow. Journalists should have warned us about the 'bonus culture,' but BBC management was party to this greed.

Good journalists are good for Britain. One of the best, who incidentally started his career on Newsround, is Krishnan Guru-Murthy. On Channel 4 News last night Krishnan asked a newly elected BNP Euro MP: Do you think that the impact of all immigrants and their descendants has been bad, or do you think that some of us are OK?

More on journalists and editorial independence shortly.

Yesterday this blog proved that the BBC is disingenuous regarding one of their six core values - We respect each other and celebrate our diversity so that everyone can give their best. I quoted part of an email from the BBC Trust in which it is clear that the BBC not only wish to be excused from a duty to promote equality, but they also want exemption from anti-discrimination legislation.

Newsround today included an item about elections to the European Parliament. During his report on the 5.05pm programme Adam said the following:

For the first time ever a group called the British National Party has won places in the European Parliament, and that's caused a huge fuss. They say they don't want any more people from abroad moving to Britain. They've been accused of being racist, but they say they're standing up for white British people.

Diversity has been in the news recently, including in this report on Newsround's website. Diversity, however, is not just the group who won Britain's Got Talent last week. Quoted on the back of BBC staff identity cards, you'll find a set of six core values including: We respect each other and celebrate our diversity so that everyone can give their best.

In the first weeks of 2009 Newsround included reports about the first black President of the United States, a boy who has only two fingers and a thumb on each hand (7 January), Prince Harry's controversial remarks about race (12 Jan), difficulties for Travellers' families (22 Jan), Nintendo Wii used to help with physiotherapy for disabled kids (9 Feb), Paralympian gold medalist Ellie Simmonds received her MBE (18 Feb).

But in recent years there haven't been any reports at all about LGBT issues.

With the Government finding itself in such dire straits, it's clear that the new Equality Bill may not make any further progress. However one thing the proposals have achieved is to tease out the BBC's true position on diversity. The Corporation, as we've seen before, blatantly discriminates against some groups, including teenagers.

Now the BBC wants to ensure its discrimination is put on a formal basis, with an exemption to the proposed legislation. Or in the words of the BBC itself:

"... the commissioning, content and broadcasting of programmes and other output should be excluded from the positive duty to promote equality and also from the non-discrimination provisions."

So there you have it - what the BBC really thinks of diversity.

A month ago, Newsround ended with a story about a sweet shop in Southampton which had run a competition to invent a new flavour sweet (see blog on 28 April 2009). Yesterday's programme, at 5.05pm, ended with a similar item. This time it was a press pack report from 12 year old Harry, who told viewers that he had the best job in the world - a sweet taster.

Taking into account the problems of child obesity and considering the harmful effect of eating too many sweets, the editorial decision to include another item about confectionery, presented in an unfailingly positive light, is questionable to say the least. The BBC believes that its editorial independence is sacrosanct - a subject to which Newsround Blog will be returning in due course.

However Newsround began yesterday with a more constructive report presented by Ricky, which looked at the curious topic of glowing monkeys, and more generally at arguments for and against animal testing.

That's it. You're up to date with all you need to know.

How many times have regular Newsround viewers heard the programme end with those, or similar words?

So what do kids need to know, and how well does Newsround fulfil its purpose of providing that information? Well, kids need to know the truth, presented honestly and fairly. And when mistakes are made, they should be acknowledged and corrected as soon as possible.

There were some interesting stories on Tuesday's programme at 5.05pm, but one item about a skydiver falling 6000 feet without a parachute included an unfortunate error: "... This is the story of the skydiver who fell 6000 feet - that's almost a mile ..." In fact 6000 feet is somewhat more than a mile, as you can easily see from this wolframalpha search.

A great pity the launch of WolframAlpha wasn't reported by Newsround over the weekend, as it is obviously something of which schoolkids should be aware. It's not on Newsround's website either.

Tuesday's programme began with an item about Miley Cyrus who, according to Newsround, was being bullied.

Sonali: Our top story today is bullying. It's a problem we talk about on Newsround quite often because it affects loads of you. But as Gavin's been finding out, people who you really wouldn't expect to get bullied do too - and guess what, they can find it just as upsetting and hurtful as the rest of us.

Gavin: ..... It all started when Miley made a jokey comment about her legs looking a bit jiggly on the social networking site Twitter. Then loads more people added comments about her weight. But Miley hit back, saying that she's just a normal girl and that making comments about people being fat are really dangerous. ....

The on-screen graphic quoted Miley Cyrus as saying "My legs are too jiggly" whereas the tweet was actually "i just jiggled my thighs and they shook on their own for 3 mississipis no more late night lucky charms." In other words her thighs shook for three seconds, and Miley felt she therefore needed to stop eating breakfast snacks at night.

A few hours later Miley responded to other people's remarks with:

"talk all you want. i have my flaws. im a normal girl theres things about my body i would change but stop with calling me f*t in post. i dont even like the word. those remarks that you hateful people use are fighting words. the ones that scar people and cause them to do damage to themselves or others. people that are so okay with being so hateful diguist me and need to spend last time on a gossip website and more time a. reading your bible b. reading stories/articles about what happens when cyber abuse and name calling happens. kids hurt themselves. this is not something to be taken lightly. i know these "message boards" are "no big deal" to YOU but is to the victim. this has got to stop!!! oh and ps if your thighs don't jiggle go see a doctor. thanks. :)"

Miley also posted a link to this webpage about cyberbullying.

Four comments from Newsround's feedback were read out at the end of the programme.

International Day Against Homophobia 2009




17th May every year is International Day Against Homophobia. A lot of people aren't sure exactly what homophobia is, so what better day than IDAHO to talk about it.

Broadly speaking homophobia is a type of prejudice related to people's sexual orientation. And, as with racism, it can range from thoughtless hurtful language to violence and even to murder. But with racism there is a zero tolerance attitude in society, which is still far from true with homophobia.

When gay teen Michael Causer was murdered the judge and jury at the subsequent trial refused to accept that homophobia was the motive, even though it was the only credible explanation for what happened. As a consequence of the judge and jury's own prejudice one of Michael's killers, Gavin Alker left court a free man. Yet according to witnesses, Alker had used language such as "watch yourself, he's a poof" and "you little queer faggot"

Michael's murder was one of several homophobic attacks and murders in Britain in the past year.

It's the casual homophobia, such as name-calling and bullying common in both primary and secondary schools, which facilitates a climate of prejudice in which these serious crimes take place. Recently Jonathan Ross made a remark on his Radio 2 programme. He's reported to have said "if your son asks for a Hannah Montana MP3 player, you might want to already think about putting him down for adoption before he brings his...erm...partner home." Ofcom received some complaints, as did the BBC.

On Thursday I asked the BBC Diversity Centre what advice they had given the BBC about the Ross incident, but they didn't have a bad word to say about him. The Diversity Centre told me "these off-the-cuff remarks were made purely in jest and were not intended to be offensive. Jonathan is not homophobic in any sense and never meant for his comments to be taken seriously."

Teens thrown out their homes for being gay, or students who can't get a loan from their parents to study at college, would not see the funny side of Jonathan's so-called 'jest' and what's more the Corporation can hardly describe the unceasing innuendo about gay men on his Friday night TV programme as 'off-the-cuff.' The introductions to Friday Night with Jonathan Ross are carefully scripted, and every week include an innuendo-laden gibe about gay men.

If, as Jonathan claims, he is mortified about accusations of homophobia, he could make amends by going much further than a tweet in support of Peter Tatchell. He should put an end to all the innuendo and stereotyping on his Friday night programme, and choose a house band based on reasons other than their willingness to be demeaned.

And yes, Jonathan Ross does know that his innuendo about gay men is unacceptable. That was clear when, on 22 February last year, he compared himself with comedian/pariah Jim Davidson (see blog on 31 October 2008)

The Equality Bill had its second reading on Monday and there were many good speeches explaining why equality is important. John Bercow pointed out that despite all the changes in legislation and, to a degree, in culture, children who are, or who are wrongly thought to be, lesbian, gay or bisexual are harassed and bullied on a monumental scale.

Lynne Featherstone said women in full-time work are paid 17% less than men, and 36% less if they work part-time. A disabled person is two and a half times more likely to be out of work. A person from an ethnic minority is 15.5% less able to find work. Sixty-two percent of over-50s believe they have been turned down for a job because of their age, and six in 10 lesbian or gay schoolchildren experience homophobic bullying.

Julie Morgan mentioned some initiatives in her constituency particularly the Skypad unit based at the University Hospital of Wales. It has special age-appropriate facilities for teenage cancer sufferers. The rooms are geared towards teenagers and there is a chill-out zone as well as computer games. That sort of development, said Ms Morgan, is exactly what we should be encouraging, because it is appropriate for the age of those young people. "They are not children, and they are not adults, but in the health service in general about two thirds of those who are at that in-between age are not in appropriate accommodation." Ms Morgan also talked about representations she had received from the Young Equals campaign (see previous blog)

Video about Skypad Unit

Green shoots?

In its first few years of existence Newsround broke new ground and was prepared to be innovative. But in the last few years there's been a steady decline in Newsround's audience. The BBC Trust, in offering its views on children's services recently, attempted to put the blame on schedule changes and chose to ignore the likelihood that programme content and associated editorial decisions could be significant factors for the decline in interest. Complaints are continuing regarding the December 2008 message board deletions, and CBBC's unwillingness to take any notice of users.

The programme itself has become less willing to push forward the boundaries, precisely at a time when, with competing new media, BBC journalists need to be more prepared than ever to challenge and question. All too often Newsround is simply padded with the non-controversial and lazy option of sports news.

As a result Newsround has become boring and pretty much irrelevant to kids.

Despite a May 2007 promise to participate in Takeover Day, come November 2007 there was not a single mention of the event, not even coverage on Newsround's website. No coverage or participation in 2008 as well. And when last year a group of charities and young people launched the Young Equals campaign, including the Young Equals day of action on 28 August 2008, none of this was reported by Newsround.

Friday's Newsround programme, looked slightly more encouraging (Friday 8 May at 5.05pm)

Politics - row about MPs' expenses [1'48"]
Road safety [0'13"]
Neglected animals on a farm [0'13"]
Male primary school teachers [1'58"]
Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg [1'44"]
Preview of Sportsround [0'20"]

The first news item was about why MPs are under fire for expense claims - a good story choice because it shows the need for journalistic scrutiny.

Sonali: First to a row about politicians being greedy. Over the past few months people have been getting more and more angry about the amount of our money being spent on their homes. And today we found out the surprising things they're spending the cash on.

Sonali's video report which followed included an interview with the BBC's top political journalist, Nick Robinson.

The next report on Friday was about kids' road safety in the UK. Sixteen countries have a better record, and the government needs to do more. Then came another short item, this time about the Gray family who had neglected animals on their farm in Buckinghamshire. The fourth item considered the dearth of male teachers in British primary schools (see blog on 26 April 2009). Yet even on this report Newsround couldn't quite manage to steer clear of gender stereotyping.

Sonali: When Newsround asked you what job you'd like to do when you're older, becoming a teacher was the top choice for girls. But for boys it was way down list and it seems the same story in primary school classrooms around the country. Gavin's been finding out more.

Friday's NR showed signs of being a bit more willing to question the existing order of things. It showed that sometimes adults make mistakes or do things because of their own selfish interests. Ultimately though, if CBBC want to increase its audiences it needs to more frequently challenge viewers and make programmes more relevant. Are we seeing the green shoots of a renaissance? If so, there are a few things Newsround might want to look at.

Young Equals is unhappy that new equality proposals, to be debated tomorrow, don't go further to stop discrimination against children. Why not report what the four children's commissioners, children's rights groups and individual kids are doing to help promote equality and fairness? Earlier this year the commissioners gave evidence to the joint parliamentary committee on human rights, but regrettably nothing on Newsround. And what about those CBBC message boards? The criticism continues, and still not a whisper from Newsround. The UK Youth Parliament is due, this summer, to have a plenary session in the House of Commons but up till now Newsround has demonstrated that it doesn't do youth democracy.

CBBC needs to get out of the rut of management's rigid target ages, which were endorsed uncritically by the BBC's supine sovereign body.

Chas Newkey-Burden, co-author of 'Not In My Name: A Compendium Of Modern Hypocrisy' writing in the 25th birthday edition of GT magazine (page 122) argues that there's a lot of imaginary homophobia about in Britain. In his opinion gay people are disproportionately visible in popular culture, and have "never had it so good."

He believes that we look for homophobia where there isn't any. As an example Newkey-Burden refers an elderly couple who own a hotel in Cornwall and are being accused of discrimination. He then goes on to criticise an article in a previous edition of GT magazine, in which the BBC was "astonishingly accused of being a “bastion” of homophobia." (see blog 11 March 2009) Chas says that one of the key pieces of evidence "for this jaw-dropping allegation" was remarks made about Lindsay Lohan which, he believes, are no different in kind to the "harmless banter" commonly heard in the gay community.

Newkey-Burden then goes on to contrast this with what he regards as serious cases of homophobia - people who are tortured, imprisoned and executed in some Middle Eastern countries for their homosexuality.

His piece ends by stating that making accusations of homophobia against Brian McFadden or Boris Johnson is easy, because neither tends to bite back particularly hard. Opposing anti-gay brutality in the Middle East and elsewhere, he says, "might actually take some courage – a quality in increasingly short supply in British gay life."

I'm not sure what Chas Newkey-Burden is on about. Four years ago he himself criticised a joke on the BBC's Have I Got News For You. True - it would require a great deal of courage for someone living in say Iran or Saudi Arabia to oppose anti-gay brutality. But for people in Britain who rely on the media for their living it takes almost as much courage to criticise the BBC - and that's something that Peter Tatchell has in spades.

Changes at Newsround, and the BBC attack on diversity

There have been a few changes at Newsround, but whether for the better or for the worse remains to be seen.

More generally, as regular readers already know, the BBC is far from being comfortable with the principles of equality and diversity, and now it seems Channel 4 is assisting in a regrettable attempt to be exempted from some duties in the new Equality Bill.

According to the Guardian, the broadcasters are suggesting that their editorial independence would be compromised. Newsround Blog has been investigating, and will keep you informed.

Bullying questions

An article about the taunts endured by Tom Daley at his school appeared in the Guardian on 18 April 2009. Tom's bullying got worse after he took part in the Olympics last year.

"It's gone on a long time," he says of the hounding that now resembles bullying, "but it reached a peak after the Olympics and has just stayed there. They've been taking the mick for ages, calling me 'Diver Boy', but they now spend most of their time throwing stuff at me. I thought it would calm down but it hasn't."

Two days after the Guardian article Newsround began a week of reports about its investigation into the lives of children. The fieldwork for the investigation took place in January 2009, and presumably involved considerable planning. One of the principal findings was that children were most afraid of being bullied. But for some reason Newsround failed to report Tom Daley's bullying until the following Friday, by which time it had become a big story in the 'red tops'. Originally Newsround chose to minimise the issue of bullying as it affects kids at school.

On Tuesday 21 April:-

Ore: You spend nearly a thousand hours every year at school. It plays a big part in your life, but 1 in 4 of you think there's too much pressure to do well in exams. Bullying is a problem too, and more than half of the kids we asked told us they're distracted by badly behaved children. What's more 1 in 10 of you said that teachers are sometimes bullied or even attacked in class. Maddy's been investigating.

Kids bullying their teachers is a recognised issue, and it was the the focus of Maddy's report. However a "massive investigation" called All About You might be expected to look into the bullying problem as it affects kids themselves.

And then on Thursday 23 April:-

Ore: We all get scared sometimes and many of you share the same worries. The most frightening place for most of you is being in the dark. 4 out of 10 of you told us that it's where you felt least safe. But 1 in 5 of you said you feel unsafe on the streets. When we asked you what you were most afraid of, most of you said bullying but next on the list was getting stabbed or shot. 1 in 8 of you said that was your biggest fear.

Gavin's report followed, and as with Maddy's there was no mention of children who were concerned about bullying. So why did Newsround play down the problem of bullying? And why did CBBC remove the 'Bullying' message board and other peer help boards in December 2008? And why was all Aaron's expert help about bullying and growing up issues taken away as well?

CBBC's editorial judgement looks questionable if you ask me.

Switch - the BBC's service for teens - broadcasts about two hours of TV programmes per week. Most of BBC Switch TV air time consists of programmes made in, or about North America. Last Saturday one of the offerings was a new documentary series called Teen America, available here on the iPlayer for a short while. Nineteen year old Louis Bhose (Flash Louis) presents the series, and he began by saying that he'd been spending far too much time living in his own little world.

Bhose: So I've decided to spread my wings and checkout what other teens my age are up to across America. This week I'm going to find out if the life of a devout Christian could be for me.

Louis then proceeded to hook up with a group of fundamentalist Christians at a weekend 'Acquire the Fire' convention in Richmond, Virginia. He seemed quite at home with the group's enthusiasm when they shouted "Yes, yes, yes we do, we love Jesus, how about you?" Inside the convention hall he met up with guides Mani and Charlotte. Bhose listened to Christian rock, a group prayer, and a tearful session which he said made him feel a little uneasy.

Bhose: It's very interesting. They've created Christianity for the MTV generation. This is it. This is the big screens, but then they're relating it back to Christianity. They've found the formula and people are getting caught up in the hysteria and in the moment, and crying almost for the sake of it.

Bhose said he was a bit confused by it all.

Next we saw the groups founder Ron Luce dish out advice, with a prayer which was repeated a phrase at a time by those at the convention.

Luce: Lord Jesus make a covenant with my eyes. I refuse to let Hollywood tell me what sex is really about.

Then Luce demonstrated their attitude to pornography and lust by having a computer monitor smashed to pieces with a baseball bat, to wild cheering and applause of onlookers including Bhose himself.

Bhose chatted to Charlotte about her all-girl 'abstinence' class. Bhose said that Charlotte seemed to truly believe that God would find the right one for her.

After discussing the commercial side to the operation and then a short chat with Ron Luce, the documentary concluded with Bhose chatting to guides Mani and Charlotte. "This weekend hasn't converted me to Christianity," he said, "but it's taught me a lot more respect for it, speaking to people like you two and seeing that you're not crazy." Louis asked them to keep him updated because he wanted to know how the journey goes. He ended by joining Mani and Charlotte in a group embrace.

I was a little concerned about that particular programme because it seemed to me that Louis too readily embraced a fundamentalist religious movement, failing to look at it with a sufficiently critical eye.

Commercial channels can't advertise unhealthy food and snacks during programmes watched by kids. But that doesn't mean BBC children's TV can't include news items about sweets and chocs. In fact Newsround covered three separate chocolate-related stories between Monday 2 March and Friday 6 March this year.

Today's programme at 5.05pm ended with a story about a sweet shop in Southampton. The shop called The Sugar Shack is a traditional sweet shop which opened in November last year. The owner, who incidentally has sold sweets online for about three years, came up with the idea of a local competition for kids to think up their own new sweets. Emily and her brother Adam were late entrants to the competition, but they invented the winning flavours. Ricky carried out a taste test himself and slightly preferred Emily's Banana Sherbet over Adam's Blueberry Explosion.

After the news story Ore asked those who thought they might have better ideas to head over to the website and let Newsround know.

Two Newsround All About You surveys have been reported in the last 18 months. A press release for the 2009 survey included several doubtful claims about differences which have occurred since the 2007 survey, due to the margins of error with the sample sizes involved. So, for example, where the press release states that: This year sees an increase in the number living with both mum and dad (68%, up from 65% in 2007) and also those with siblings (84%, up from 80% in 2007) in reality there may have been no change, or even a decline in the numbers. The regional comparisons in the press release are even more doubtful because of the smaller sample sizes and consequent greater margins of error.

Newsround itself didn't dwell on these trends, although Wednesday's Newsround did, it seems correctly, report that kids are spending more time with their families than before. The first programme on Monday dealt with concerns about money and the report ended with Evan Davis' rather optimistic view of future prospects for jobs and the economy.

Tuesday's programme was about school. Sonali said "most of you reckon it's important to get good exam results, but bullying is a big issue too." According to the BBC press release one in three 9 & 10 year olds said they'd been bullied. Maddy's report concentrated on disruptive kids and included an interview with teacher Jean Roberts who talked about being kicked by a boy who had previously been excluded. One in ten children had mentioned that their teachers are sometimes attacked or bullied.

On Wednesday we saw Adam going to meet Joe's ten brothers and sisters, and their mum and dad, all living in a house in Blackpool.

The topic on Thursday was about kids' worries. Bullying topped the list of things kids were most afraid of, though this was only briefly mentioned during the introduction. Instead the main report concentrated on fears of gun and knife crime. The message from Chris Preddie of Crimestoppers was that children are much safer if they don't carry a knife.

The last programme of the week looked at what kids wanted to do in the future. The favourite job for boys was to be a footballer, and for girls it was to be a teacher. Teachers are expected to challenge stereotyping ^* so the programme could have included a female footballer and a male teacher. Instead it kept with tradition - we saw 27 year old Rebecca talking about her teaching job, and Mark Noble who plays for West Ham United.

I'll come back to the issue of bullying in a future blog.

* The Code of Professional Values and Practices [GTC 2002] & Draft Code 2008 - Principle 4, Promote equality and value diversity

NB Following info from the BBC my blog entry of 26 March 2009 has been amended with an edit note.

CBBC's website and message boards

In the face of obduracy most kids have given up complaining, but a few are still questioning the changes to CBBC's message boards and website. This was posted a couple of days ago:-

Why won't you answer our questions PROPERLEY and giving a full explaination why you ruined the boards? I say why: you are heartless and cruel, not caring about any of us, as well as being scared that we know more than we get credit for.

Furry Time Lord: You should have been here when the boards were worth going on. It was more happy and relaxed. It ruined and will never be how it used to be.

On 5 February 2009 the BBC told me:-

We consulted other expert bodies outside the BBC (such as the NSPCC, Anti-bullying Alliance and CEOP) and have developed a number of social web products and services which are more appropriate and relevant to primary age children, such as myCBBC, Me & My Movie and Bugbears.

However I was particularly concerned about the withdrawal of peer help message boards such as the CBBC 'Bullying' and 'Your Life' message boards, as well as the withdrawal of all expert help about growing up problems which used to be provided by agony uncle Aaron. In a lengthy response to my further enquiries the BBC provided more details of their reasons for the changes.

As far as the expert help is concerned the BBC said that "provision of suitable information of complex issues for vulnerable kids is always best delivered by a sympathetic adult who can help put these concerns into context."

So I contacted the NSPCC to ask what they had to say about the withdrawal of expert online advice and they told me that they "would welcome more places where children could find support if they have a problem." They added that it's a shame the service is no longer available and said the NSPCC and Childline believe it is important that every opportunity is taken to provide vulnerable or worried children and young people with as much information and help as possible.

Newsround could have had the scoop if they'd decided to investigate, but when I asked on 5 January they told me the changes could be viewed as improvements "because it will allow more effort and resource to be put into the remaining boards and will allow more focused discussions." They had no plans to cover an investigation into the issue as they had already committed to another subject.

On 7 April 2009 I emailed the BBC to let them know the NSPCC viewpoint.

The third anniversary of the BBC's specious Creative Future policy is approaching. I blogged about my first age analysis of feedback to Newsround on 13th April 2006.

A new summary of Newsround feedback, based on data from six different topics late March/early April 2009, can be seen below:Three years on, by hook or by crook, it seems that CBBC has succeeded in ousting many of its teen viewers. Thirteen, 14 and 15 yr olds constituted over half of all feedback, but now they're less than a quarter.

Teens now have a meagre couple of hours of TV per week on Saturday afternoons, including repeats of Kyle XY which, a few weeks ago, was greeted in the Switch studio with loud cheers for a returning programme.

So much, where kids are concerned, for the BBC and Public Service Broadcasting. Is it any wonder that audiences are dwindling. The BBC Trust would like to put the blame on scheduling changes. The Weakest Link may be one factor, but the REAL weakest link is the BBC itself.

TV licence fee evasion rates, according to the BBC Trust, are predicted to increase slightly in the current economic climate. Maybe they're right but it's also possible that evasion rates will get much worse. So how should the Corporation respond?

Things have changed a great deal since the Review of TV Licence Fee Collection began last autumn. Back then, there were concerns about the harsh tone of advertising - a few sensitive people had been offended by the 'we know where you are' campaign and decided to boycott the fee. But now there are millions of people worried about losing their jobs and their savings.

The BBC needs to demonstrate that it deserves our money. And that means using the licence fee responsibly. So let's look at some examples from Newsround last week.

Monday 6th April - Was it really necessary for a Newsround reporter to travel to Italy to cover the earthquake story? That was already being done perfectly well by Louisa Baldini ... a few thousand pounds saved without really trying. Unlike Louisa, Newsround's reporter wasn't seen speaking a word of Italian and just seemed to vanish from the disaster area after a couple of days. Her web report of the trip has, at the time of writing this blog, a final entry mistakenly dated Tuesday 7th April at 3pm.

Thursday 9th April - Newsround at 5.05pm began with a report about children being locked up in detention centres. 15 year old Meltem had to spend three months in one of the centres. Meltem said it was depressing being locked up without seeing friends and family. She said people in government should think what it would feel like if their children were in the same situation. Newsround's report also included a short interview with Lyn Homer of the UK Border Agency, who put the government's side, and an interview with Caroline Slocock of Refugee and Migrant Justice, who said that refugee children shouldn't be locked up and treated like criminals. For once Newsround dealt with a controversial issue relevant to the rights of children. This is the kind of thing Newsround should be prepared to do much more often.

The fifth item on Newsround last Thursday was a report about buying and downloading music. Ricky said that downloading tunes off the internet is more popular than ever before and that you can now download songs for as little as 29p. He spoke to a music expert who said because prices were lower, more kids would be buying online. Ricky ended his report by saying that "for many of you, the only option you have is to buy a CD." He failed to mention that you can listen to, although not download, music tracks legally for free with a programme like Spotify. In the context of Newsround's report this was a significant omission.

The last report was about seven year old agony aunt Elaina (see my previous blog)

Help from agony aunts and uncles

Everyone needs help with their problems from time to time, says Newsround, on the webpage caption to a story about seven-year-old agony aunt, Elaina. Ore introduced the report on this morning's programme at 8.25am -

Ore: Who do you turn to when you need advice? A parent? a friend? The problem page in a magazine perhaps? Well one radio station in the Midlands has just hired a new agony aunt who's only seven, yes seven years old. Here's Adam

Adam began by mentioning a few problems kids might have - things like too much school work getting you down, not being selected to play on the team, or Adam's pet peeve - being nagged by someone. "Then you need Elaina," said Adam.

Elaina: I like helping people. When I grow up I wanted to help people even more by being a nurse, and then I changed my mind to being a radio producer.

Andy Goulding, who's the DJ she works with, says that Elaina is completely open and honest and that's what you need sometimes.

More about agony aunt/uncle advice to come. See also blogs on 8 Jan 2009 and 18 Jan 2009