Newsround - Celebrating 50 Years

Julie Etchingham

Julie Etchingham

Julie first joined the BBC as a trainee and went on to present Newsround from 1994 to 1998.

She has since presented for Sky News, Five News and is currently a lead presenter for ITV News.

Julie won a Bafta and an International Emmy at Newsround for her show on children affected by war in Bosnia.

Ellie Crisell

Ellie Crisell

Ellie joined Newsround as presenter in February 2003, leaving in 2008.

She went on to present for BBC News and is now the face of BBC South East Today.

Significant stories that Ellie reported on included the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, when she travelled to Indonesia to see the effects of the disaster.

Lizo Mzimba, Kate Sanderson, Matthew Price

Lizo Mzimba: It’s important that children hear about difficult, complex stories because they’re going to hear about them anyway.

Hayley Hassall (presenter since 2009): And unfortunately some of those stories affect children far more than they affect adults, so it’s really important that we are there.

Sonali Shah: Some of the toughest stories, the difficult stories, the upsetting stories are important because actually they’re [events] that are really rare.

Lizo Mzimba: If they hear it from Newsround, they hear it in a way that is properly balanced, that gives the correct amount of reassurance and in a way that they can trust.

Speaking about the Troubles in Northern Ireland...

Newsround Extra reported on Northern Ireland in May 1981

John Craven: I remember going to Northern Ireland at the height of all the Troubles and talking to children from a Catholic school and a Protestant school, together in the same room about how they felt, about how things were developing in Northern Ireland.

Giving children a voice over an area that was very important in their lives.

On the 9/11 Attacks...

Kate Sanderson presenting on 9/11 2001

Lizo Mzimba: It was just one of those days where you instantly think about how you are going to do something like that for children. And again the principles are very, very straightforward.

There was never a question that we wouldn’t do it for Newsround.

You’ve got to be calm, you’ve got to be reassuring, but not misleading.

You’ve got to reflect to children that something terrible has happened and that people are still trying to find out exactly what happened, how it happened, who did it and why.

Matthew Price talked through the breaking news

But also trying to reassure them that everybody is working incredibly hard to ensure that this isn’t going to happen again.

For us, it was important to talk to children who were involved because that was the best way of explaining the story to children here.

When we got to New York, we spent a lot of time talking to children who had been affected. Just trying to give a genuine sense of what was probably the most shocking event that had happened for years.

On the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing...

Hayley spoke to two 13-year-old friends, Emily and Lauren, who were at the concert

Hayley Hassall: One of the big stories that has happened during my time at Newsround has been the bombing of the Manchester Arena concert.

Now these incidences are very, very rare and we would never want to scare our audience, but it’s very important that they know about it and they know that they can come to Newsround and we’re a trusted source who can tell them exactly what happened, but also put it in context.

We knew it was important that we weren’t only there to tell the news but we also supported our audience through the telling of that news story.

Ricky reported live from outside the Arena

Ricky Boleto: This was a story that predominantly affected young people, they were at a concert of one of their idols, Arianna Grande, and it was children who died, it was children who were scared and impacted by that attack.

It was a real moment, where I knew parents and teachers were using Newsround to try to explain the awful events, to give children the tools to understand why this might have happened, to reassure them that these kind of attacks are extremely rare.

It’s so important that Newsround was there, standing outside that arena, you know being live. It's probably a moment that I will never forget.

Empire and Me...

De-Graft traces his family history in Ghana

In Empire and Me, Newsround presenter De-Graft heads to Ghana, the country of his family’s heritage, to trace his roots but also find out how being part of the British Empire impacted the country and its people.

In the special programme, De-Graft learns how the slave trade was instrumental in bringing Britain to Ghanaian shores.

Empire and Me - A Newsround Special

He also learns how the British used brutal violence to cement their power there and explores the legacy British rule has left in the country.

Empire and Me will air later in 2022.