Even where you are trying to tell people about harm to children or another children’s issue or promote children’s rights, you always need to respect the best interests of the individual child.2 This is because, children are vulnerable and oftentimes the impact of the story often affects the life of the child long after the story has been published or broadcast. However, Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) feels that this fundamental principle was not considered by e-TVwhen they reported about a six year-old girl from Boipatong, in Gauteng who was held at gunpoint.
The story was broadcast on e-TV’s prime news bulletin on 14 February 2015 and revealed how the girl was kidnapped and held at gunpoint for three hours following a domestic dispute.
In the bulletin, the father of the girl is interviewed by the reporter, Yusuf Omar while carrying her in his arms. The girl is however unidentifiable as she has her back against the camera.
While there was some effort to protect her identity, this was undone by identifying the father and therefore indirectly identifying her.
The larger question in our minds is of whether the child should even have been involved in the filming of the interview. What is the purpose of having the child there?
The kidnapping is a criminal case, and the child is both a victim and a potential witness in the case, and should not have been identified.
This kind of reporting is a criminal offence as it is in contravention of section 154 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Act which warns against the direct and indirect identification of children who are accused of crime or witness in a criminal proceeding.
Moreover, ethically, e-TV did not minimise harm. What the child experienced was already traumatic; one can therefore only imagine the impact of such media attention on her. The story could have been reported without revealing any information that may directly or indirectly identify the girl.
MMA urges e-TV to ensure that when reporting on children; the privacy and the best interests of the children whose story they are telling are respected and protected.
By Musa Rikhotso
1. On a weekly basis, MMA highlights cases of good practice, where the media has promoted the rights and welfare of children, otherwise referred to as “GLADs”, as well as instances where the rights and welfare of children have been compromised through irresponsible media coverage, referred to as “MADs”↩
2. See https://www.mediamonitoringafrica.org/index.php/resources/entry/editorial_guidelines_and_principles_on_reporting_on_children_in_the_media/↩