Roundtable: Media must do more for children

What has Bangladesh been doing for its children? Is the government doing enough? If no, then has the media been able to properly monitor their work? Is the media content produced for children adequate or sensitive toward their needs?

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 24 August 2017, 11:06 AM
Updated : 25 August 2017, 12:10 PM

With the upcoming election, should political parties specify their vision for improving the conditions of children in their manifestos?

These were some of the questions raised during a roundtable on ‘Children in Media’, organised by hello.bdnews24.com, Bangladesh’s first news service by children, on Thursday.

Toufique Imrose Khalidi, editor-in-chief of bdnews24.com, moderated the session, also aired live on Facebook.

“The government must play the central role in improving the conditions of children. This is what is widely accepted. It is believed or claimed that they have been working on that goal,” said Khalidi in his opening remarks.

“Is it enough? Is it what is needed? The media’s job is to ask these questions.”

Children account for 40 percent of Bangladesh’s population, but their inclusion in the media is insufficient as only 3 percent find place there, he said.

State Minister for Information and Communications Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak joined the discussion also attended by representatives of media and UNICEF, a partner of Hello.

“We don’t want to set limits for children. They should not be neglected, but be prepared to take on the future,” said the ruling Awami League leader.

“The government has many roles here. If it fails there, it should not raise expectations for the future. Expectations must meet our ability.”

Palak said the biggest challenge was in developing content for children. “We are all worried that books will go extinct in the face of social media, which is turning into an addiction.” 

“So if there is no way to get them offline, then we must take our content to them. Textbooks can be put online. We make them more attractive when we create digital versions.”

 

The government has passed the Children’s Act, and has been emphasising their needs in terms of education, health and entertainment, Palak said.

Ekattor TV chief editor Mozammel Haque Babu agreed that designing content for children is challenging, particularly because they are more expensive.

“No-one wants to do this because it’s costly. But if children account for 40 percent of the population, there should not be a dearth of funding for creating programmes of genuine quality for them.”

He, however, challenged the 2012 UNICEF survey that said children account for 3 percent of media coverage -- in news and entertainment. But he agreed that children deserve more programmes dedicated to them.

The UNICEF survey is accurate, said the UN body’s communication specialist AM Sakil Faizullah. “The figure rose to 3.78 percent in 2014.”

“I agree that our idea of children’s news is a tiny story boxed in the corner of a magazine page. Sports stories can also be for children, because they read about sports,” he said.

   

Ekushey TV CEO Manjurul Ahsan Bulbul said the media connects children in three manners: when they read news or watch television, when their issues -- positive or negative -- are covered in news and when they practise journalism.

“A voter needs to know what a political party thinks of children,” he said. “This is agenda for the media, that parties address something about children in their plans. We want to work on these things.”

Hello child journalist Pritha Pronodona, a student of Dhaka’s Nalanda school, said there is not much substance in narratives that set children as the future.

“This is what we encounter in schools and colleges every day, that we are the future. But how can that be if I continue to be neglected?”

There was an overall lack of respect, she said.

“I came to journalism because I want to be a part of it. But I don’t get much attention when I work. The people I interview don’t reply to my questions the way they do for journalists who are adults. They instead ask, ‘are you really a child journalist?’”