Angelina Jolie Is Helping Kids Fight Fake News
Think of it as a dream team that's coming together to battle fake news all over the world: Angelina Jolie, the BBC, and Microsoft Education are teaming up to produce BBC My World, a show that'll give kids over 13 the tools they need to identify credible news and ignore false information. Variety reports that Jolie's show will use reporting from the BBC World Service and that the half-hour program will be broadcast weekly.
"As a parent, I am happy to be able to give my support to a program that aims to help children learn more about the lives of other young people around the world, and connect to them to each other," Jolie said in a statement. "I hope it will help children find the information and tools they need to make a difference on the issues that matter to them, drawing on the BBC World Service's network of thousands of journalists and multiple language services around the world."
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To make sure that as many kids as possible can access the show, BBC My World will be shared across 42 different language services and be made available online via YouTube and BBC's iPlayer in the United Kingdom. The production team is setting out to show kids how to filter out the noise that comes with access to social media and what Variety describes as "content aimed at adults."
Microsoft Education's involvement will include making lesson plans available to educators after each episode, which will also include a special learning segment. There are no plans for Jolie to appear on the show, though the BBC's Radzi Chinyangany and Nomia Iqbal have been tapped to host. Topics will include deepfakes, logging and deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, and the effects of mineral extraction and mining.
