MEDIA RIGHTING WRONGS AGAINST CHILD RIGHTS THE WRONG WAY

Coverage of children in the media warrants utmost of sensitivity. Their vulnerabilities should not be amplified, while seeking to highlight their plight. That's why it was almost absurd for a Kenyan broadcast station, to deem it fit to have a news item of children demonstrating against a 'rape' case. It's a case of the media righting wrongs against child rights the wrong way.

It's first of all an indictment of a society that cannot protect its own children, leaving the little helpless ones at the mercy of beastly miscreants, who rob them of their innocence, in the vilest of conceivable ill-manner.

The intention of the media may be noble, in covering such debased behaviour by adults, preying on defenceless tots. But even so, care must be taken not to worsen a bad situation.

Aside from the need to get (written) consent from parents or legal guardians, before filming and broadcasting the protest, it's highly likely the children were prompted by adults to participate in a public demonstration.

And the fact that they were demonstrating against sexual assault, means there is a chance this sensitive matter was discussed either amongst the children or with grown-ups.

Such a negative context is surely not the way to impart sexual education to post-toddlers and pre-teens, via the media.

The TV station erred in opting to broadcast the story, without even a care about concealing the identities of the demonstrating children.

Ethics should always apply in coverage of children in the press, especially because their right to privacy is absolute.

Abso-godam-lutely! (sorry).

DEATH NEED NOT BE ILLUSTRATED BY DEAD BODIES

Uganda's capital city Kampala, has just been rocked by a deadly twin-terrorist attack, with more than seventy people perishing. For the average person to appreciate the gravity of these attacks, the media need not illustrate it with dead bodies.

And yet the images splashed in the Ugandan media seem to negate this very central tenet of journalism ethics. Indeed, very, very disturbing pictures have been posted on the Internet.

And it is hard to believe there is any good that can come out of placing some of these images on social networking sites, even as a way of spurring beneficial debate.

The carnage was horrific and many Ugandans are in mourning. Posting such images online will surely aggravate the trauma of the victims' relatives or anybody, who can recognise them.

I have made it a habit of complaining about the way the western media is fond of showing dead bodies, when reporting about conflicts in Africa or other developing countries, and yet seem to apply another ethical standard, when covering stories of dead people in their own or fellow industrialised states.

I once entered into a heated argument with a TV producer of NHK of Japan, when I was in Tokyo, after seeing close-ups of dead bodies in a documentary the channel had produced about the Darfur conflict in western Sudan.

And in my MA classes here in the UK, many a times have found me castigating the western press for their penchant for double standards. My favourite example being the way dead bodies were splashed across international channels after the 1998 terrorist attacks in Nairobi because the live images were being received and relayed unedited.

But comparatively, every care was taken to avoid showing people jumping from the twin towers after the September 11 attacks in America, despite the images being in the possession of TV networks, as they happened.

It is thus quite devastating for me to see Africa's own media being insensitive to its own people, whether covering their lives or deaths.

LOST GIRLS OF SOUTH AFRICA AND UNETHICAL DOUBLE STANDARDS OF THE UK MEDIA

The disclosure of the identity of a minor involved in a court case in the United Kingdom is expressly forbidden. Is it too much to expect the same ethical considerations, when the UK media is covering similar legal issues from elsewhere in the world?

Almost inevitably it seems, that would depend on the definition of elsewhere. If it is from a fellow industrialized country, the same standards apply but if we are talking about an African country, then the same ethical standards need not apply.

A very emotive episode of Dispatches, on Channel 4, disturbingly titled, 'The Lost Girls of South Africa, is a good case in point.

Whereas the producers did a super job in highlighting the plight of young girls at risk of sexual assault by close relatives and neighbours, the depiction of the victims was utterly deplorable.

It mattered not that the girls, aged between 11 and 13 were minors in every sense. Subjecting them to having to describe how they were sexually molested on camera, was humiliatingly inhuman, cruel and in very bad taste.

But the obsession of capturing the little ones crying on tape seemed to have gotten the better of the producers. And so the already traumatized souls had to endure being filmed almost around the clock, as they struggled to deal with their physical, psychological, social and emotional scarring.

UK media unethical misadventure in  South Africa 


The crowning low-point in the story, in my opinion, had to do with the absolute discarding of the girls' absolute right to privacy. No attempt is made to conceal their identity.

Their interviews include very detailed close-ups and for even one shocking scene, you get to see one sexually abused girl getting the results of her HIV test, in the company of her mother.

Is it because of the debilitating poverty or inability to enforce written down laws in many African countries that makes them so vulnerable to all manner of attacks by the western media?

And one cannot also help but question the motive behind the timing of this particular Dispatches. A couple of weeks prior to South Africa hosting the greatest sporting spectacle on earth, football's World Cup. Another stab in the back to stem Africa's progress?

Yes the victims need all the help they can get and the exposure of the weak judicial system in South Africa will go a long way in piling pressure on the government there to implement mush needed reforms.

But the survivors of the harrowing ordeals still deserve and should be accorded all their inalienable rights as human beings.