Media Coverage Of Issues Of Children's Rights Violations In Kenya: Case Study Of Nation Newspaper And The East African Standard Newspapers

ABSTRACT

The study aimed to study the media coverage of issues of children's rights violations

in Kenya. It employed A quantitative assessment of secondary data was carried out on

The Daily Nation and The East African Standard for the period of six months

(January 2005 - June 2005).

The major recommendation was that media houses should seek to establish objectivity

when covering children's issues. They should not portray children always as people

who only need to be helped, but rather as people who also contribute actively in the

society; from our observation most of the children's coverage was concerning charity

functions. The increase of coverage of children's issues in the months after the

Children's Bill was passed is an indicator that the two papers paid more attention to

children's issues after the passing of the Bill. Children are important members of our

society and the Bill should not have been the one to prompt the papers to give

children more coverage.

Judging from the increase of Hard News items on children by both papers, issues

concerning children gained a lot of prominence after the Billwas passed. As such,

they were covered more in form of hard news as- compared to letters to the editor.

Both papers allocate substantial amount of space to photographs on children's issues

although the Standard allocates more as compared to the Nation.

The study showed that there was an increase in the coverage of children's issues in the

months after the Children's Bill was passed is an indicator that the two papers paid more attention to children's issues after the passing of the Bill.