Media continues to treat children’s problems as sensations, API

The mass media continues to violate the deontological code as regards the treatment of topics concerning children in the hunt for sensations, says the fourth monitoring report of the Independent Press Association (API) presented in a news conference on Friday, Info-Prim Neo reports. ”After four months of monitoring, we identified extremely worrisome trends in the way in which the media outlets understand to observe children’s rights,” said the Association’s head Petru Macovei. According to API expert Ina Prisacaru, the national newspapers in October showed a constant interest in the subjects regarding children. Some of the publications provided too many details about how the child was abused. Among them are “Jurnal de Chisinau”, in the article “Father Causes Troubles”, and “Panorama” in the journalistic investigation about children from HIV-infected families, who are not accepted in schools. The report says that in these articles, the authors inserted unsupported assertions and did not indicate sources. The news stories based on communiqués do not show two sources. The API says the TV channels also violate children’s rights. The channel Pro TV Chisinau, in the news item about the six-year-old girl who has been sexually abused by a neighbor – ignored a number of deontological norms. It broadcast the name and picture of the child, the name of the village, the age of the abuser, information about the members of the girl’s family. Jurnal TV and Publika TV committed similar violations. The API report shows that besides such traditional themes as murders, sexual abuses and physical violence, the media outlets published well-documented analysis articles centering on children’s rights. Petru Macovei recommended the media outlets to review their editorial policies so that the subjects about children become of general interest not only in cases of use of violence, human trafficking, offenses, accidents and other tragic situations involving children. The monitoring was carried out within a project launched by the API in July with support from the UNICEF Office in Chisinau. It will be completed in December. Afterward, there will be organized a series of debates involving owners and editors of media organizations.