Children’s human rights near-absent from the editorial agenda
The Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) today publishes Children’s rights and equality in the newspapers, a review of the representation of children’s rights and children’s equality in the national print media.
In an audit of ten tabloid and broadsheet newspapers over a six month period, CRAE found that articles about children’s rights and equality made up only 1.8% of all articles about children. Sensationalist stories about children as victims were most likely to dominate news coverage of children.
The report is part of a project funded by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to look at how to promote positive messages about children’s rights and equality in the media.
This newspaper review was carried out by CRAE’s policy and public affairs team in 2008, and considered articles carried about children in ten national newspapers between 1 October 2007 to 31 March 2008 (in all weekday editions for the first week of each month during this six month period).
