Truth is out there, so go get it kids
The Morning Show hosts Kylie Gillies and Larry Emdur welcomed cub reporters to the studio to help launch the Kids News Junior Journo Newsroom, with experts agreeing it was critical that young Australians develop skills to recognise and create trustworthy content.
As rampant disinformation rapidly redefines what it even means to be literate, education and media experts have called the lack of agile curriculum change potentially “disastrous”.
University of Canberra
Associate Professor Michael Jensen, co-author of the report Australian Perspectives on Misinformation, said a focus on media literacy for children was “fundamental”.
“Most of the things that we know about the world around us come to us through the media,” he said. “Given information is the fundamental fabric through which we interact with everything that’s meaningful in our world, disinformation is potentially that kind of all pervasive threat.”
These calls for curriculum change come as News Corp Australia’s free digital classroom resource Kids News today launches the Junior Journo Newsroom.
Supported by News in the Community and Channel 7, the expanded 2024 competition, now in its second year, supports “the growing need for Aussie kids to get on the tools”.
News Corp Australia’s Community Ambassador Penny Fowler said the competition “is exciting because it encourages young people to develop their focus on facts”.
“It involves the same skills that professional journalists depend on daily – the ability to separate the truth from the false and the worthy from the worthless,” Ms Fowler said. To enter: kidsnews.com.au/ junior-journo