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Media is giving young people a 'bad press'

Media coverage of young people is “overwhelming negative”, according to a new report.

Young People Now magazine claims that wall-to-wall coverage of teenage gangs and violence could give a whole generation a bad name, and has launched a campaign to improve the portrayal of young people.

The move follows research conducted by Mori on behalf of the magazine for youth workers, which revealed that more than 70 per cent of press articles about young people are negative.

The survey analysed national and local press, including the Manchester Evening News, Yorkshire Evening Post, Western Mail, Birmingham Post and Eastern Daily Press, for all mentions of children and young people during the first week of August.

And of the 603 articles found, one in three were about crime, while young people were only quoted in eight per cent of stories about them.

Sixty-nine per cent of youth workers questioned about their perception of media coverage said they felt local newspapers were negative.

Steve Barrett, editor of Young People Now, said that many young people are doing positive and productive things, and that this should be better reflected.

He said: “The majority of young people are law-abiding. Wall-to-wall coverage of teenage gangs and violence risks stigmatising a whole generation, leading to catch-all policies that discriminate against the majority of young people who are just getting on with growing up.”

Now the magazine is hoping to encourage more balanced coverage of young people with its Positive Images campaign, which was launched at Portcullis House in Westminster yesterday.

This includes a draft media code which is being submitted for consultation with the media and youth groups, which says that young people should be given a voice.

It also calls for the media to take care when using “loaded” words such as ‘yobs’, ‘thugs’, ‘monsters’, ‘evil’ and ‘gang’, and to recognise that publishing the names, addresses and photographs of young people made the subject of anti-social behaviour orders can put their safety, and that of their families, at risk.

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