Hey, listeners, I wanted to tell you about a new podcast called The Ten News, this is a news show that's made so that the news is easily digestible and understandable for kids. And I recently sat down with the host of the show, Bethany Van Delft, to talk about how they manage all of the current events in a way that's easy for kids to understand. So first, Bethenny, will you just tell us what 10:00 news is?

The 10:00 news.

It's ten minutes of current events, pop culture, fun facts, and it's all delivered in a kid friendly format, really hoping that kids will cling to every word and take it with them and share it with their friends and discuss it with their grown ups.

Now, that makes me wonder why for you it's important that kids have access to current news stories. What drives you to be part of something like this?

Personally, I was raised in a very, very news involved household. My parents were Marxists activists. We got on a bus from New York to D.C. to March for everything, almost everything. We you know, we were doing demonstrations in New York, some serious cultural, you know, tragedies happened and came on the news.

And I remember it was our family always talked about it with us.

They didn't never talk down to us. They talked us knowing that we're smart kids.

But hearing the news from the news like, you know, we're bringing you a special report to say that somebody was assassinated or something was terrifying to hear it. The news that was intended for adults ears. When my parents talk to us about it and broke it down in an age appropriate way, it was easier to take that news in.

And I do think that growing up, knowing what was going on. Helped my activism in college years, I think it gives you a foundation. For activism later, and I fully believe everybody should be an activist to some degree, whatever they're passionate about, they should definitely be an activist.

So, you know, when I was in college, I remember there are people who are so blown away to learn, you know, truth about the Vietnam War or, you know, what conglomerates are or truths about slavery that there were there are pretty devastated and brought to their knees as young adults and then to process that, pick it up, put it back together and then go on and try to be an activist.

Just seems like such such a heavy lifting task where I felt that having the background in it and hearing the news and being able to process it really helped have a foundation in what is going on, knowing what the historical context for things is, knowing, you know, what the precedent for this event is, really did help.

So one of the big things that really stands out in listening to the news is how thoughtful everything is presented. Like every topic is treated very carefully and thoughtfully and with context. It's something that we strive to do on stuff you missed in history class all the time. How does the writing team on this show balance keeping stories simple enough and digestible for kids while still capturing the nuance of any of these topics, some of which are very difficult?

Well, to begin with, we have a super experienced team of writers and journalists. You'd be surprised to know who some of the journalists are that are helping out on the show.

But they really they're very skilled in breaking down difficult topics, in figuring out what is the essence, the essence of this event or this news story. I also think that kids are smart. I think society takes for granted how smart kids are.

So they want to hear the news. They want to be involved. And I think it's just a matter of delivering it in an age appropriate way and giving them the context to help them understand what's actually going on right now.

And, you know, the teams always polling the listeners and getting feedback from kids in our age demographic eight to 12 years old.

I'm glad that you brought up the fact that you get feedback from the kids because that might feed into this next question. What has been the most surprising aspect of working on a new show that's geared towards a kid audience personally?

What surprised me so much was the whole team was so on board with tackling really difficult news stories, which I you know, I got involved because that's that's what the team seemed like, a, you know, group of people that really wanted to let kids have access to to this information.

But right in the beginning, when we all started working together, is when George Floyd was murdered and.

I was so upset and I was feeling like, God, I wish I had an outlet.

I wish I had a way to talk about this in a more engaging way than, like Facebook or or Instagram or something. I wish that I was doing something where we could talk about this and we you know, I was doing something where we could talk about it.

I didn't know if the team would be on board with trying to tackle something so difficult. But everybody, the writers, absolutely everybody was right.

Yeah, we do have to talk about this and jumped right in.

Tracey and I were on the phone for like an hour and then there was a script shortly after.

And it was really a collaborative effort, me being a woman of color and coming from, you know, an activist activism background.

They really welcomed my input to say this is a little like glossing over what happened or maybe we could make this point more strong in an age appropriate way.

But I think it's important not to dilute this this fact here. And it was such a collaborative and passionate, really well-intentioned effort.

That's the ideal. So when you wrap up recording or you know that an episode has published and gone to air, what is your hope in terms of what kids take away from any given show?

I hope they come away feeling like they understand what's going on. I hope that they understand that being involved in what's going on, it's for everyone. It's not just for grownups. It's for young people, too, and kids, too. And there are so many ways to be involved.

But that this is the beginning. This is the beginning where you start hearing the news, understanding what's going on in context, seeing how this event from six months ago fed into this event that's happening now. And I hope that they see that their role is so important in the news today. I love it.

Thank you. And the whole team for giving kids a way to learn media literacy and to see how how the events of our world connect. Thank you so much. Thank you.

And thank you for saying media literacy, because I think that was the word that was lolling around outside of my head. But I couldn't get to you all.

Thank you for your just all around literacy.

Is there anything that you wanted to touch on that we didn't get to? I love that the team is reaching out to young activists, you know, 13, 14, 17, 18 years old, young people that on their own saw the need to be involved and be aware.

And they're putting it into action. They're getting other kids to join them in their activism.

I think that's really cool reaching out to those kids so that young people listening hear from young people who are doing and hopefully they make the connection that this is someone their age that felt strongly about a thing and just got up and figured out what their role could be.

I am really, really grateful to Bethany for spending that time with me, and honestly, I think I can always use a nice news aggregator that makes everything simple, but still captures all of the key points and nuance that we all need to get through our day.

Great for kids, also good for adults. It airs twice a week every Tuesday and Thursday. And you can listen to the 10:00 news on the I Heart radio app at Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.