Guest post: Why do young people fare so poorly in the media?

Post by Trudy Kilcullen, Chief Operations Officer at the Jack Petchey Foundation

Following the recent riots in London and across the UK, headlines such as ‘Feral Scum’ and ‘Youths on the Rampage’ were rife within the media.

Looking at the ages of those who have appeared in court, it is clear that whilst many are shockingly young, the vast majority are over 20, and so we have to ask ourselves why young people seem to have got the heavy share of blame and media exposure.

Among the first cases to be heard were adults in their 40s and 50s and worryingly, there were also people from the caring professions of teaching and social work being tried; older wiser adults who are supposed to be positive role models for our young.

The Jack Petchey Foundation believes it is important to seek out the views of young people as our society looks to understand the causes of the recent unrest. Many young people we have spoken to are angry they have been blamed or given an unfair share of the blame yet again.

We ran a survey over the days following the riots and more than 500 young people responded. Almost half (45%) felt the coverage of young people in the media was unfair.

Comments they added to the survey included: “The media are only interested in showing and talking about negativity against the youth”.

Another said: “I saw a headline which said “teenagers rob local shop”. It’s stupid because you wouldn’t say ‘adults rob local shop’!”

It is really important young people are not unfairly made scapegoats for what has happened. 99% of young people are not involved in serious youth violence, (figures from the London Serious Youth Violence Board) so if we focus on the 1% who are we risk creating a negative cycle. As one young person said, “If young people feel like they are treated as scum, they will act as scum.”

This week and every week, hundreds and thousands of young people are active contributors to society. We need to look at ways their achievements are highlighted too.

Is there a role for the media to help young people feel valued, included and respected so we don’t alienate them and create a bigger problem in the future? This is a question we as the Foundation hope to address.