Media monitoring increasing responsible coverage of children’s issues

The media monitoring undertook by the Georgian media and advocacy organization the Civic Development Institute with the support of UNICEF shared an unprecedented initiative to media on March 30. The initiative is aimed at monitoring how the Georgian media reports on children to ensure children’s issues are covered in a more responsible and ethical way. “I have to note that the reporting on children in Georgian media has definitely improved but still there is more work to do. Reporting on children’s issues requires a specific knowledge and understanding of international standards”, said Roeland Monasch, UNICEF Representative in Georgia. Stressing the necessity for carefully analyzing each word or phrase, Monasch worried that they may affect the whole life of a child and emphasized that everything we say about children should go through additional scrutiny and consideration.

The media monitoring is only a part of the partnership project implemented by the Civic Development Institute with the support of UNICEF and it embraces three major components: development of the publication - Standards for Journalists on Reporting of Children; round-table meetings with the representatives of the regional media to discuss ethical reporting on children and media monitoring.

'Standards for Journalists on Reporting of Children' has already been produced and disseminated. The publication compiles all the existing ethical and legislative norms, international and national, on reporting of children. “We start media monitoring on children considering the existing norms and standards. Our goal is to check how we, journalists, protect child rights. It is important that we ourselves try to strengthen media self-regulation mechanisms to achieve ethical reporting. We will do our best to ensure that media in Georgia protects children and their best interests,” Ia Antadze Head of the Civic Development Institute told the media.

Trained experts and lawyers will monitor Georgian media covering children’s issues and in case of violation of national as well as international standards, a special appeal will be sent to the existing media self-regulatory bodies like Charter of Ethical Journalists, National Communication Council, particular media outlets or their self-regulation councils. In total, 65 national and 14 regional media outlets will be monitored on a regular basis throughout the year. “We realize that very often we do not know the standards and norms of ethical reporting on children. With this initiative we only try to support journalists to learn these standards. We call our colleagues to partner with us to work together and to make our media more child-friendly,” Antadze stated.