The impact of news film on children's learning was investigated by presenting 193 fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh grade students with one of two versions of a newscast. The children viewed a videotape of a newscaster introducing film reports of six stories or listened to the newscaster reading the news stories. The children provided responses to questions about their general television exposure, news exposure, how they rated media credibility, why they watched the news, and what they could remember about the stories in the newscast. The results showed that a number of factors were associated with children's learning from a television newscast. The use of film in the one version helped children in both their aided and their unaided recall of the stories, and students understood more of the stories presented with film than those presented without film. There was a grade-by-film interaction so that film helped understanding in the higher grades more than it did in the lower grades. Despite the advantages of film, large percentages of children, even in the eleventh grade, did not remember or understand important hard news stories presented in the newscast, an indication that news programs for young people need to be presented in a clear and simple manner. The data also indicated that even young children understood the structure of newscasts, realizing that the most important stories were presented first, though they differentiated between importance and their own liking of the stories. (RL)