Identity of vulnerable child is irrelevant
Parents or guardians who use scholar transport expect their children to be transported to and from school safely. Although this method of transport helps children get to school in time, sometimes children bear the brunt of being killed or injured due to reckless drivers on the road.
The News24 article titled ‘’WATCH | Merafong scholar transport crash: Surviving pupil used cellphone to inform his parents’’, (11/07/2024) receives a MAD[1] from Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) for not adhering to the best interest of the child and ethical journalistic practice when reporting on stories where minors are involved in a horrific accident.
The story reports on a scholar transport that was involved in an accident that happened in Merafong, Gauteng. The transport overturned and caught a fight. This resulted in 12 pupils losing their lives and 7 pupils escaping with injuries. One pupil managed to call his parents, who then alerted the authorities.
The article is a violation of the principles of journalistic best practice because it publishes the name of the child survivor who escaped with burnt wounds to the face and body. By identifying the child, the journalist has potentially subjected him to secondary trauma that may occur as a result of seeing the story and his identity in the media.
Furthermore, the child is a potential witness to a criminal case and also potentially puts the child at risk of being harmed to be kept from testifying. Directly identifying the child contravenes Section 154(3) of the Criminal Procedure Act which the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in case 871/2017 (Centre for Child Law and Others vs Media24 Limited and Others) to be read as follows, “No person shall publish in any manner whatever any information which reveals or may reveal the identity of an accused under the age of 18 years or of a victim or of a witness at criminal proceedings who is under the age of 18 years.”[2]
The article would have had the same impact if the child was not identified. MMA submits that identifying this child violated his rights to privacy and also that the act itself went against the Bill of Rights’ Section 28.2[3] which states, “a child’s best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child’’.
MMA requests News24 to kindly withdraw the child’s identity and to instead use pseudonyms in order to protect the child from harm, including potential harm. In addition, News24 needs to provide an explanation to the readers as to why the article had to be altered.
Written by Msizi Mzolo
Edited by Ntombifuthi Kubeka
[1] MADs are given to journalists who have irresponsibly reported on children and have compromised their rights and welfare.
[2] See Section 154 (3) of the criminal procedure Act 51 of 1997
[3] https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rights