* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
UNICEF and Thomson Reuters Foundation join forces towards better reporting on children in emergencies in Kyrgyzstan.
Disasters or emergencies take many forms. Some are natural, some man-made. All bring the journalist face-to-face with vulnerable people who, as often as not, will be at the heart of the story. The challenge, particularly if the vulnerable person is a child, is how to interview them and report on their plight without adding to their problems.
UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, offers reporters and media houses guidelines. «In interviewing and reporting on children, special attention is needed to ensure each child's right to privacy and confidentiality, to have their opinions heard, to participate in decisions affecting them and to be protected from harm and retribution, including the potential of harm and retribution,» it advises.
But, as participants in a Thomson Reuters Foundation disaster reporting workshop in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan discovered, protecting the rights and needs of a vulnerable child is a balancing act that requires a particular set of skills.
Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic that became independent in 1991, has experienced a range of emergencies from earthquakes, landslides and flooding to social and ethnic unrest. A fatal case of bubonic plague in 2013 served as a reminder that crises can take many different forms.
The workshop, sponsored by UNICEF, brought together a score of newspaper, television, radio and online reporters or editors and UN and government spokespeople from 19-22 August 2014. They gathered on the shores of Issyk Kul, one of the world's largest high-altitude lakes, as an epidemic of the ebola virus spreading across West Africa focused minds: what if it happened here?
NOT SO SIMPLE?
Trainers Richard Meares and Nicholas Phythian used a simulated outbreak of an ebola-like disease to bring participants face-to-face with some of the likely challenges. It soon emerged that balancing the public interest, protecting vulnerable sources and, in the case of an epidemic, protecting yourself, requires some delicate decisions.
How, for example, do you respond if an infected individual coughs on you or, worse, hands you a paper handkerchief they have just sneezed into? How do you respect a child's right to have their opinion heard with a need to protect them from risk? What if the broader public interest trumps the rights of a single child ?
UNICEF's advice on protecting children is clear. «Do not publish a story or an image which might put the child, siblings or peers at risk even when identities are changed, obscured or not used,» it says.
Yet the International Federation of Journalists, in guidelines quoted by UNICEF, suggests things may not always be that simple when it advises reporters to «guard against visually or otherwise identifying children unless it is demonstrably in the public interest».
SENSITIVITY
In reality, it all boils down to a judgment on the part of the individual journalist and/or their media house… And such judgments are likely to reflect changing public attitudes!
The BBC, in its latest guidelines, tells staff : «The interests and safety of children and young people must take priority over any editorial requirement.» BBC staff, it adds, have a duty of care - essentially they need to anticipate the impact of a report on any child they interview.
The International Federation of Journalists, in a comprehensive 2002 report available via the following link http://www.unicef.org/magic/resources/childrights_and_media_coverage.pdf, highlights a need for sensitivity. As a rule of thumb, the first step is perhaps to ask yourself : «What if this were my child ... or my kid brother … or my kid sister?»
Beyond that, the International Federation of Journalists report, although it was published over a decade ago, remains perhaps the best source for practical tips and insights on what to do next.
FOOTNOTE : Some historians suggest Issyk Kul was the source of the Black Death, which wiped out a third or more of the population of Europe in the 14th century. Others, pointing to evidence of outbreaks elsewhere in Asia, say it was merely a Silk Road staging post for the deadly bubonic plague bacteria on their way to Middle Ages Europe.
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