Keys for Talking about Early Childhood in the Media

This manual seeks to inform communication professionals and journalists of the appropriate norms of communication about early childhood, particularly in Latin America, drawing on a rights-based approach to journalism. It was produced as part of the "Expansion and hemispheric commitment to early education through technology and communication networks" project, implemented by the Organization of American States (OAS) in 2009.

It proposes basic criteria for news coverage of children's issues to strengthen, modify, or innovate practices of reporting.  Its aim is to increase journalists' awareness of their responsibility to rights-based reporting and the specific conditions of the social, political, and economic environment of each country. It seeks to sensitise journalists to their role as agents of transformation of society and to raise the level of awareness of portraying children as those who have a voice and the right to speak, rather than as those who are vulnerable, victimised, or in need of assistance.

The material serves as a guide to transform the information in academic writing, on television, in radio, and in print to texts with rights-based terminology. Its section on radio, television, and the press contains specific recommendations on language and on visual representation (pages 25-27). It also provides some keys for journalists looking for a guide on early childhood.

It contains the following:

• The context of communication and mass media.
• Information management guidelines in the media: Languages ​​and formats.
• Monitoring, evaluation, and reflection on early childhood and press coverage.

Throughout, the text explains that the management of information can lead to positive changes in perception and response of society, or it can generate indifference. The guide becomes a call to promote the educational role of the media on the rights of children and the presentation of their voice. It directs writers to produce information on early childhood with contents showing new perspectives, new information approaches, rigorous research, and a rights perspective as a central concept.