David Farnor | On 25, Jan 2020

Angelina Jolie is teaming up with the BBC and Microsoft for My World, a weekly news series for young audiences.

The global show aims to explain the stories behind the news, providing facts and information for viewers aged 13 and up to make up their own minds about international issues. The programme aims to fill a global gap in reliable and trusted information for young audiences in this age group, who are legally allowed on many social media platforms but susceptible to the dangers of poor quality ‘fake news’ and disinformation.

Drawing on the independent, global reporting of the BBC World Service, it is a co-production with Angelina Jolie and Microsoft Education, with the BBC retaining editorial control over all content.

The weekly half-hour TV programme will be broadcast on BBC iPlayer in the UK, and globally on the BBC My World YouTube channel, as well as on BBC World News, the BBC’s most-watched channel which reaches more than 100m people across the world every week. It will air on the channel each Sunday at 4.30pm, and content will be shared across the World Service’s 42 language services. There will also be multi-lingual distribution in more than 20 countries, including Canada, China, India, South Korea, Bosnia and the United States.

The programme is presented by Radzi Chinyanganya and Nomia Iqbal.

There is a bespoke learning segment to accompany each show, as well as additional lesson plans created by BBC Learning, all of which will be available through Microsoft Education for a global audience of educators. The content will help the teaching of media literacy in schools around the world.

My World builds on the media literacy work that the BBC does in the UK and abroad, both through BBC Young Reporter and the BBC World Service’s Beyond Fake News initiative, which took media literacy workshops to schools in India, Nigeria and Kenya in 2018 and continues to shine a spotlight on disinformation. Last year, the BBC convened a Trusted News Summit bringing together senior figures from major global technology firms and publishing, to initiate a new industry collaboration to tackle dangerous misinformation. At the summit media education was highlighted as a key priority.

Jamie Angus, Director of the BBC World Service Group, says: “There’s a gap in provision for young people who want to understand how the news is made and the values that stand behind it. They need the tools to distinguish the real from the false online, and the skills to think critically about information, wherever they encounter it. Nurturing these abilities is the aim of My World, and they’re crucial for today’s young people, not just for personal development but the future health of global democracy.”

Angelina Jolie adds: “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 them to each other. 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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