In light of media reports on several incidents in which children were victims and sometimes perpetrators of various offences during the past few months, the political authority is contemplating meeting with the media to discuss how these incidents should be reported. As per the reports, media institutions are slated to be summoned to the Parliamentary Caucus for Children in order to discuss the prevention of child victimisation, which takes place owing to the exposure of the identities of children who have been victims of molestation and abuse and also children who are suspected or accused of having committed crimes, through the media.

However, with one objective, the Government is about to commence two serious tasks. One is aimed at protecting children, especially those who are involved in legal actions or offences, and the other is guiding the media to act responsibly and sensibly. The Government must identify the gravity of both these tasks, as both of them pertain to sensitive areas of the society.

The aforementioned decision to summon media institutions is a welcome move, which one might even say should have happened earlier. For years, if not for decades, the importance of having appropriate regulations for all forms of media has been stressed. Those concerns were raised mostly in cases of media institutions acting in an irresponsible manner when reporting sensitive matters, often sensationalising various aspects of crimes and giving undue publicity to trivial and sometimes irrelevant information. Social media discussions about the media’s behaviour when reporting matters of national concern, especially crimes, have aptly pointed out how the international media focuses on the news value of an incident, and how the Sri Lankan media focuses on even irrelevant information that could trigger empathy or anger in their audience. This situation which continues even today has been the main reason behind demands for the regulation of media institutions.

Reporting incidents involving children is one aspect of the abovementioned business minded media behaviour. Many media institutions, especially web based ones, did not hesitate to show the faces and reveal certain other information of the children who were involved in those incidents. The incident of the 16-year-old girl, who recently died in Kalutara after falling down from a building, is a clear example. In that case, even though a number of mainstream media institutions reported and discussed the incident without showing the deceased’s face, several web based media did not hesitate identifying the dead teenager. In no time, showing the victim’s face became a normal act, and both new and mainstream media started showing her face every time an update of the incident was reported. Similar acts were seen in several other cases, including incidents where minors committed crimes, which have the potential to pose challenges to both perpetrators and victims.

Showing the faces of children when reporting issues pertaining to children is not necessary, at least in most cases. One thing that media institutions should keep in mind is that children, as minors, have a long way to go in life, and naming and shaming them could affect their future regardless of the cases that they are involved in. As a country where victim blaming is quite prevalent, even victims are not safe from the society’s tendency to be judgmental and discriminatory, especially in cases of rape and other forms of sexual abuse.

In these incidents, media institutions play a unique and exceedingly influential role. While they have a right as well as a duty to report incidents that matter to the public, they have a duty to identify and prioritise what is important and relevant over what sells. The fact that we are still having this conversation, which started years ago, proves that the so-called self regulation or self censorship, about which these media institutions have been talking about for years, or the existing code of ethics for certain forms of media such as the print media, have not really materialised. It is time to take tangible and effective measures without resorting to attractive but ineffective ones. As every sector, media too should have regulations that ensure inter alia the responsibility and quality related aspects of media reporting. That could come from media institutions as suggestions, the regulatory bodies of the media or even the Government and then be discussed and agreed upon by the relevant stakeholders including the Government, or be presented by the Government to be discussed and approved by the relevant stakeholders. Regardless, what matters is that such steps are taken to ensure that media reporting supports positively to the society’s forward movement, and does not become just another form of business that prioritises money over their responsibility and impact.