MRDI launches project on ethics in child reporting

Management and Resources Development Initiative (MRDI) recently launched a project on ‘Exploring Young Mind: News literacy and ethics in child reporting’ to create a sense of news literacy especially among the young learners.

MRDI is organizing the program in partnership with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) with support from UNICEF Bangladesh.

Bangladesh Debate Federation (BDF) is the implementing partner of the initiative.

‘We are working to ensure ethical reporting on and for children for years with different initiatives. If the readers/audiences can judge the violation of ethics in reporting on and for children, then we believe quality of child reporting will be improved and ethical violation can be minimized,” said Chairman of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Dr. Mizanur Rahman.

“The term ‘News Literacy’ is comparatively a new concept not only in Bangladesh, but globally. The moment readers become conversant with this concept to assess any information or news from an ethical and logical point of view – they become capable of demanding accountability and authenticity of news. Thus, we are happy to be a part of this initiative which is meant to create a positive environment both for the reader and media to enhance child rights”, said UNICEF Bangladesh Representative Edouard Beigbeder.

Under this campaign, national debate competition will be organized through an event of two days at 12 regions covering 64 districts and a gala final in Dhaka involving participants of both schools and colleges.

Sixteen teams from each region will participate in the competition. A total of 600 debaters will participate in the competition and orientation sessions.

A briefing session on news literacy on reporting ethically on and for children will be organized before each competition involving all the participants to orient them on the debating topic.