Kid-safe news radio needed

September 22, 2015 4:49 PM

I need to find some past news radio segments that 1) are available online, 2) will play continuously for 45-60 minutes, 3) involve no discussion AT ALL of sexual assault or any bad things happening to children, and 4) preferably would not be perceived by a religious conservative as having a strong liberal bent. I've been skimming through NPR's Morning Edition online archives but with all of the migrant crisis news it's hard to find something that I can be reasonably sure would not discuss bad things happening to children. Any ideas? Maybe a past episode of an NPR show that you know meets these criteria, or a kid-safe news program?
posted by quiet coyote to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

I would browse stories by Shanker Vedantem, the science correspondent for NPR. His stories focus on cognitive and social science; he synthesizes findings from recent studies in a very accessible way, and in my experience these stories can make for great conversations with older kids -- and even quite young kids can think about what we might mean by human nature and why we act the way we do.
http://www.npr.org/people/137765146/shankar-vedantam
posted by flourpot at 5:04 PM on September 22, 2015

Youth Radio is written and produced by teens and young adults for a general audience, and they do touch on some heady stuff (domestic abuse, immigration, etc.), but they also have lighter fare that might meet your needs. Check out their Newsroom.

Of course, "religious conservatives" often balk at young people learning or talking about the realities of the world they live in, so I don't know that you'll ever pass that particular test...
posted by mykescipark at 5:23 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

When you say kid-friendly, do you mean something that is primarily for kids, or something that an adult can have on in the background that a kid will likely hear if they're in the vicinity? If the former, Radio Disney might be a good fit.
posted by Hermione Granger at 6:30 PM on September 22, 2015

NPR broadcasters always state if there is something not kidfriendly at the beginning of iffy segments .
posted by brujita at 7:18 PM on September 22, 2015

Not sure if this would work for your purposes, but it is fairly simple to string together a playlist of NPR stories in their online media player. You could even filter through recent Morning Edition episodes this way - just add the segments that work for your purposes and skip those that are questionable.
posted by earth by april at 7:39 PM on September 22, 2015

The Today show pretty much exists to fill this niche on TV. so maybe their podcast would work:

http://www.today.com/id/8132577/t/get-podcasts-nbc-news-msnbc-tv-nbcnewscom/
posted by selfmedicating at 7:49 PM on September 22, 2015

The WNYC Discover App lets you build podcasts from their coverage (NPR plus local segments) based on topics you pick. But it is WNYC, so it may have a liberal bent for some topics.

How current does this need to be--news from the last week/month/year? And how hard is the news you're looking for--are you looking for reports on current events, or maybe something like the This American Life from earlier this summer where they spent the whole episode following life at one auto dealer on Long Island? (I'd forgotten there was cursing in that episode, but I've linked to a censored (with bleeps) version.)

Knowing whether the kids will be actively or passively listening to this changes the equation quite a bit...
posted by thecaddy at 8:05 PM on September 22, 2015

BtN (Behind the News) is a news program for tweens made by the ABC in Australia. Might be something you can use there.
posted by quinndexter at 8:33 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Yeah, this isn't for actual kids- this is for an adult; no kids will be listening. I thought that kid-safe would communicate the kind of content I was trying to avoid but it seems like it was just a distraction, sorry! The news should ideally be current-events style but it can be from any time in the past 10 years or so. The playlist idea is great although it would be nice if I could email the playlist to the person. I can look into ways to make that possible.
posted by quiet coyote at 4:18 AM on September 23, 2015

would Channel One News work for you? Their material for grades 6-12 would probably be a good place to start.
posted by xbonesgt at 7:26 AM on September 23, 2015