Something For Us All To Ponder...

I don't know what it is but recently I have been more aware of how children and young people are portrayed in the media. Everyday it seems there is a story about knife crime or gun crime or alcohol abuse amongst teenagers. Is it just me or are most stories about children and young people negative?

Recent stories have included a 15 year old girl stabbed to death and found in a lift in a block of flats, a 16 year old being held for murder after killing teenager Amar Aslam in a West Yorkshire park, the shooting of Rhys Jones in Liverpool and the stabbing of 14 year old Paul Erhahon who was found just yards from his home after being attacked by a gang in North East London. I haven't had to look very far to find these stories, they are all negative, they took me a matter of seconds to find out about after a quick search on the internet.

Looking for positive stories about children however was more difficult, there are constantly hundreds of projects running giving Children and Young People the best chance they can get but these are rarely mentioned and when they are they are well hidden amongst the doom and gloom that is the British media.

This is not the only issue that gets to me about Children and Young people in the media, I have also noticed when doing a bit of reading into this topic that very few of the reports I looked at actually contained the views and opinions of Children and Young people.

Why is it that adults seem to feel the need to speak for us? Ok so there are one or two reasons I can think of as to why journalists leave out the opinions of Children and Young People like having to reach dead lines and not having the contacts to the young people but I feel that this is just laziness. We are the people who will buy the papers in the future (if we don't already do so), Children and Young people should be valued as people, after all our views and opinions can probably help make a better product for all to read.

Francesca Dent - an angered 17 year old

(I created the piece as a way to vent my anger...)

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