Role of Media in Reporting Child Abuse Cases

This article discusses the role of media in reporting child abuse cases and its impact on society. It explores the responsibilities of media in providing accurate information and creating awareness. The article also highlights the importance of respecting the privacy and rights of the individuals involved.

Introduction
Different laws, policy and legislation are in place for the effective protection, support, and
welfare of the children. It provides a guideline to professionals and practitioners to carry out
their duties of safeguarding and protecting children in an effective way. Children Act 1989
and 2004, working together to safeguard children 2018 practice guidance are some of the
rules and guidance intended to protect and safeguard children. Media plays a vital role to
bring the attention of any child abuse cases which is happening in the society and the way in
which media deals with the case greatly impact the society.
Children Act 1989
The Children Act 1989 places a duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the
welfare of children within their authority and provide different type of services according to
the need of the children. This act brought together the laws that protect children and made
them easier to follow. Moreover, it provides general guidelines by informing health
professionals and officials of their roles and responsibilities while working with the child of
suspected abuse. Children act 1989 provides right to protection from any exploitation or harm
along with right to provide safety and their welfare to children. One of the main principle of
this act is to create a best place for children to look after within own home. This is the
Paramount consideration for Welfare of children.
Children Act 2004
After the tragic death of Victoria Climbie, the Laming Inquiry was formed which provide
foundation for the formulation of this act. As a result of inquiry ‘Every Child Matters’
campaign was implemented, and this Children act 2004 came in force. This act sets out the
process for integrating services for children- creating Children’s Trusts and Local
Safeguarding Children’s Boards (LSCB). It places duty on all agencies to make arrangements
to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Children act 2004 distinguish that there is
no much amend rather than children act 1989. This process provides and creates a post of
children's Commissioner in relation to provide better home care and safety from harm or
injury to children. Children act 2004 upgrade of children act 1989 in which one of the main
purpose to make country safer and better for all his children.

Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018
It is a Statutory guidance on inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of
children. This guidance covers the legislative requirements placed on individual services, a
framework for the three local safeguarding partners (the local authority; a clinical
commissioning group for an area, any part of which falls within the local authority; and the
chief officer of police for a police area, any part of which falls within the local authority area)
to make arrangements to work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of local
children including identifying and responding to their needs. It focuses on the core legal
requirements, making it clear what individuals, organisations and agencies must and should
do to keep children safe. In doing so, it seeks to emphasise that effective safeguarding is
achieved by putting children at the centre of the system and by every individual and agency
playing their full part.
It is a statutory guidance which relates to multi agency working. It is highlighted
through fulfill the expectations of working with different agencies in national level as well as
local area in order to keep children safe.
Role of Media in reporting child abuse case with example of high profile case
Child abuse is the major issue is our society which is not only confined within the family.
Media plays a vital role in reporting of child abuse cases that happens nearby or in any
geographical location across the world. As child abuse became a public issue, there is an
immense media attention to this matter (McDevitt, 1996). There are different roles and
responsibility of media to provide the information to people in any child abuse. Media
coverage plays a major role of source of information by creating awareness of issues in
public interest among survivors and parents. There is big role of media during presenting any
crime or any child abuse cases which can also involve policy makers and agencies to make
them accountable when it is necessary. During the media scrutiny there is need to respect the
privacy and rights along with dignity of any family or children involved. Media should create
an unbiased and factual report which can be trusted by all the stakeholders, general public
and the professionals included in children care. Reports that are presented by the media
should be carefully handled and it need to have fully backed up with evidence. There might
be a situation in which media should share information promptly and immediately to the
concerned agencies to protect or prevent harm or abuse to the children. Media needed to be
engaged in debate where is there an important issue (Bilson, and Martin, 2017). Debate
should be about the safeguarding and protecting children along with vulnerable adults who is

exposed to any type of risk. When there is any type of child abuse then media is needed to
provide the information to local authority when they get the information first and they need to
respect the rights and dignity of children and they should not use the word ‘victim’. Instead
of this they should use the word ‘survivor’ which gives the positive impact on mindset of
child. They should raise the voice of the public by providing information to them which can
help in creating awareness regarding the safeguarding of children. This can have positive
impact in relation to get better safeguarding practices and policies which help to get better
protection to children and chances of child abuse could be decreased. Media role can help
their readers to get aware of the incident and able to make them aware about safeguarding
along with protection of children. By increased awareness in community and society, there is
chances of improved safeguarding practices. This can also help to build courage to act and
report if any child abuse case is noticed in their surroundings (Uçuş, 2016).
There was high profile case related with child abuse known by Peter Connolly who
was a 17 month old baby boy. He died in 2007 due to suffering from fifty injuries in period of
8th month where professional has reviewed this. This is the case who has shake the world.
There was huge role of media who admitted this and take this incident to whole new level.
The intense coverage of case about the child death due to child abuse and neglect and the
failure of statutory responsibility. Media reveled that there are many cases related with child
abuse in all over the country. There was overwhelming media interest which creates
awareness and find numbers of UK newspaper article related with this case by the help of
Lexus library database. It was identified that there are about 2823 mentioned cases related
with child abuse. There was highest number of article which was related with this case.
Media is the one who take this case to whole new level and create high level of awareness in
public. This create the awareness in high-level and provide protection of children with more
carefully. Due to high role of media there was justice within time and guilty person got
punished.
Media should not disclose personal information of survivors which can creates any
type of problem to them either physically or emotionally. The quality of the reporting should
be high which can help to get better awareness and spreading of misconduct information to
people. In relation to quantity, media need to provide report or information which is only
necessary to the public. It should not spread any unnecessary or contradictory information
just for propaganda. Media is one of the powerful tools in present world which is highly
responsible to make either positive or negative impact in the society by disseminating the
information or reports.

There are different reliable sources of information like newspapers, journals, magazine,
international news channels etc. and they are making report on the basis of proper and
reliable evidence so far. These above medias are reputed and recognised which have proper
and adequate information and also been verified before broadcasting or publishing any report.
Therefore, they can be trusted for reporting right information about the child abuse or
safeguarding (McFadden, 2018).
There is need to convey the message in positive manner which did not create
confusion or negative impact on peoples’ mindset and chosen language should be regional or
local language of that place which can be easily understand by everyone, language should be
sympathetic and and should not show sensitive content. There is need to consider that any of
the stakeholders like child, parents, extended family, social workers, local authority, police
etc. should be treated in appropriate manner and it is also needed to respect their dignity and
rights.
It is necessary to give the proper information which enable to create better awareness
of incident. There should be disclosure of information of the person who is responsible for
child abuse and should be punished when allegation is proved against it. In oppose to this
there should not be any of the disclosure which can reveal the survival name which can create
the problem in his/her social life and different emotional issues may arise which can give the
negative impact on child's life and its mental health.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, different law and guidance are there to protect and safeguard children. Media
has crucial roles and responsibility in reporting child abuse that have greater impact on
society or community. The right quantity and quality of information which should be
provided or published in media can only give the positive impact on society. Media should
give proper consideration to treat different stakeholders in appropriate manner.

References
Bilson, and Martin, 2017. Referrals and child protection in England: One in five children
referred to children’s services and one in nineteen investigated before the age of
five. British Journal of Social Work, 47(3), pp.793-811.
Elliott, 2020. Child welfare inequalities in a time of rising numbers of children entering out-
of-home care. The British Journal of Social Work, 50(2), pp.581-597.
McDevitt, S. (1996). The impact of news media on child abuse reporting. Child Abuse &
Neglect, 261-274.
McFadden, 2018. Commonalities and differences in social work with learning disability and
child protection: Findings from a UK ‘Burnout’national survey. British Journal of
Social Work, 48(5), pp.1199-1219.
Rosenberg, 2018. From flawed design to misleading information: The US Department of
Education's Early Intervention child outcomes evaluation. American Journal of
Evaluation, 39(3), pp.350-363.
Uçuş, 2016. Preparation and Evaluation of Children's Rights Education Curriculum: An
Action Research Regarding on Protection Rights Module. International Journal of
Progressive Education, 12(3).