Reporting on children – expert discussion

Children are vulnerable and journalists should take extra care in their work.

Last week, we held an illuminating and thought-provoking webinar prompted by our new guidance and information for the public on the reporting of children to help journalists and others working with young people.

IPSO head of standards and regulation, Rosemary Douce, outlined the new IPSO guidance, explaining that the Editors’ Code of Practice – the framework IPSO uses to regulate the press – gives children an extra level of protection than adults, and the importance of gaining and documenting consent when reporting on children.

Caroline Iggulden, associate editor at The Sun and sits on IPSO’s Journalist Advisory panel, explained that content involving children can often be very positive; she gave examples of how she takes extra care to ensure that children are happy and protected, and how she thinks hard about the implications of the language she uses in her reporting on children.

Head of journalism at Liverpool John Moores University, Fran Yeoman, talked about her research into the impact on children of defendants or who have a parent who has appeared in court. She explained that children who are victims, or witnesses, or defendants are protected by law. But children whose parents are defendants are not.

Lucie Calow, director of SEND at Unity Schools Partnership and a Department for Education advisor explained how schools are “harbours of safety” for children, and their absolute priority is to protect children. This meant, she said, that schools need time to be able to deal with requests from journalists to make sure that children are kept safe.

The long-term impact of reporting on children was discussed by Derren Hayes, who’s editor of Children & Young People Now. He described how including young people’s perspectives was important in “shaping narratives, challenging stereotypes and sharing their lived realities”. He set out one young person’s view that there was a “big deficit” on reporting on issues affecting young people compared to other issues “because young people are not voters”.

The public interest was raised by David Hutton, former head teacher and former member of IPSO’s Complaints Committee, who chaired the event. He spoke about how some clauses of the Editors’ Code are subject to a public interest exemption, but the public interest must be “exceptional” when reporting on children – giving them extra protection.

This article first appeared on LinkedIn.