Television expert Bob Thompson spoke with Boston Public Radio on Monday about the CNN/Sesame Street's "Coming Together: Standing Up to Racism" townhall on Saturday.
"It was all geared toward the Sesame Street audience, which is primarily preschoolers but also older kids as well," he said. "It was a very candid, very frank discussion, of course appropriately geared to that age group."
Attempts by children's shows to explain serious issues have been done before, notably by Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, as well as Nickelodeon and Disney, he noted.
"We've seen these attempts to address children who obviously cannot avoid these stories that are happening, and I think this [CNN/Sesame Street townhall] was done in a pretty sophisticated and responsible kind of way."
Bob Thompson is a founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture and a trustee professor of television and popular culture at Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
