Ombudsman for Children in Finland

"Father killed his child at breakfast", screamed an Ilta-Sanomat headline poster last September. "Mother burns her child" announced one from Iltalehti in December. It's difficult for parents to have much control over violence inundating their children´s growing environment, when you come across such yellow press headline posters as you enter your local shop or kiosk.

The Ombudsman for Children's office has received many calls and emails about headlines such as these. Parents worry about the fear and anxiety that sensational headlines may awaken in the minds of small children.

Little children who are just learning to read are especially perplexed by headline posters that throw into question their sense of trust in their own family members. The compounding of a child's feelings of insecurity would be lessened if the words 'father' and 'mother' were avoided in such contexts.

Complaints from the viewpoint of children have also been filed with the Council for Mass Media and the Council for Ethical Advertising about the use of sensational headlines. The Council for Mass Media, which regulates journalistic standards, found the "Father killed his child..." headline permissible from the standpoint of communications, but expressed the hope that special reconsideration would be given in using the headline. The Council for Ethical Advertising found that the same headline poster contravened the standards of good marketing. According to international advertising regulations, advertisements must not contain statements that may be harmful to children's mental state.

The tabloids themselves consider the headline to be journalism not advertising. But for small children and the parents responsible for protecting the peace of their upbringing it makes little difference whether a sales poster is formally speaking a piece of journalism or advertising. It's in any case on public display advertisement style.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child safeguards a child's right to receive quality information. The agreement also obliges the signatories to protect children, in light of their age and stage of development, from harmful content, such as violence. The same principle is in our constitution, which sets the basis for monitoring cinema and guiding the presentation times of TV programmes.

The headline writers may say that the main threats to children's lives are precisely those that their headlines tell about. But children´s rights are the responsibility of adults. And this responsibility is to protect children against violence and needless fear and anxiety. Children are entitled to a sufficiently lengthy protection from the harshness of the world.

In other countries, parents' concerns over the harmful effects of sensational headline marketing have in some cases led to a direct consumer response. But it would be best if the tabloids worked out how they could combine the requirements of journalism, advertising ethics and children's perspectives.

Maria Kaisa Aula
Ombudsman for Children