Children and the media quicksand

Abstract

“With a missing child dominating the headlines this summer, and reports that due to obesity our children may not outlive their parents, the question of protecting the next generation is high on the news agenda,” writes media lawyer Melville-Brown. “But it is not just the physical health and well-being of children that is at stake in our modern society. The public’s appetite for news – serious or gossip – and photographic evidence of both, together with the media’s preparedness to feed this hunger, is putting our children at risk of media over-exposure.” So who, she asks, is looking after the children: parents, courts, government or the media? And concludes: “For their own very different reasons, they all must.”