A number of articles from different newspapers share a GLAD for interviewing children from different walks of life.
“My first day of school” (The Star, Verve Section, 28/01/2011, p.20) followed Liam, a six-year-old boy during his first day of school. The journalist, Noor Jehan Yoro Badat, gave the reader a glimpse into the life of the child. His experiences were portrayed in a number of pictures published along the article and he was also given the opportunity to express how he felt about his big day.
The journalist painted a picture of a courageous and excited child in the reader’s mind. This was a refreshing take on a child’s first day of school, and differed greatly from many reports that Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) has seen in past and in recent times of crying and seemingly terrified children.
A pupil already in the school system was interviewed by Daily Sun in the article, “Early birds catch a seat!” (02/02/2011, p.8). Daily Sun paid a visit to her school, Vuyiseka High School in Cape Town, where pupils had to sit on their desks due to a lack of chairs. A powerful quote from the child was included in the article highlighting the pupil’s desperation to study in an environment conducive to receiving a quality education. “This is making us lose hope and some people don’t even come to class anymore. This is really bad. We wish the education department could do something to help us,” she said. Daily Sun did not name the pupil as she reportedly asked the paper not to name her. This is a good example of how a journalist can source a child while respecting the child’s wishes not to be identified.
Still on issues facing schools in the country, The New Age, in its article “Drug abuse creeping into primary schools – study” (31/01/2011, p.7) highlighted a report by the Medical Research Council (MRC)‘s South African Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (Sacendu). It found that children at primary school level, “are abusing dagga, with harder drugs being used by some children in higher primary school grades.”
The article went further and sourced a survey carried out by The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University involving just under a 1000 children between the ages 16 – 21. It found that 54% of these children used drugs and that one of the participants started using drugs at the age of seven, while at least three of them started at the age of eight.
To back up the claims made in these reports, the article accessed a grade four pupil, a group of primary school pupils and a grade seven pupil, who spoke about seeing pupils in their schools smoke drugs like dagga. The identities of the pupils were not revealed. This should be commended as the children were given the opportunity to talk about drug abuse in their school without the risk of negative reprisals which can often result from being identified in the media.
Lastly, a teenage rapper was interviewed in the article “Teen rapper off to Texas” (Sowetan, 28/01/2011, p.3). The child is reportedly working on his debut album and has been invited to perform in the United States of America during a festival which will take place in March. “I’m so excited. When my manager told me the news I could not believe it. We were in the studio and I thought he was joking,” he was quoted as saying.
All the above articles are examples of MMA’s editorial guidelines and principles for reporting on children in the media put into practice. These guidelines and principles encourage journalists and media professionals to include children’s voices in reports about their achievements and issues affecting them. They state that “the way in which the media represents or even ignores children can influence decisions taken on their behalf, and how the rest of society regards children.”
MMA looks forward to more reports that centre around children and their opinions whilst portraying them in a positive light.