Wed, Feb 18, 2004 page4

• Iruan was let down by media: activists

  UNFAVORABLE RESULTS Several community groups attacked how the media dealt with the Iruan custody saga, saying they turned the incident into a debacle

  • By Cody Yiu / STAFF REPORTER
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  Media outlets violated the privacy of Taiwanese-Brazilian boy Iruan Ergui Wu (吳憶樺), media commentators and social welfare experts said yesterday.

  The speakers were expressing their displeasure and disappointment with some of the nation's more aggressive broadcast and print media at a forum at the Broadcasting Development Fund building yesterday.

  They also criticized the media's failure to protect the rights of children and present a balanced treatment of the issue.

  "The media's aggressive coverage of Iruan at school and at home constituted a violation of the child's privacy because he was not a public figure," said Alicea Wang (王育敏), executive director of the Child Welfare League Foundation.

  Wang said her foundation had asked authorities to encourage media organizations to cover Iruan's handover to his Brazilian family with tact.

  However, the efforts of the foundation were to no avail.

  "Our low-key way of communicating with the authorities did not yield favorable results," she said.

  "The terrible thing to come out of all of this is that some children have now been left with the impression that all policemen are bad because they took Iruan away by force," she said.

  Lu Shih-hsiang (盧世祥), chairman of the Foundation for the Advancement of Media Excellence, said the media should present news coverage more sensitively when children and international relations were involved.

  "The media should play the role of a bystander that reports the facts. With Iruan, a situation that involved the relationship between two countries and a child's rights, the media should have been especially sensitive and objective," Lu said.

  "However, the media sensationalized the story and took no notice of the facts of the matter. One of these was that Taiwan's legal system had determined that custody of Iruan be awarded to his maternal grandmother," Lu said.

  Wang said that Article 1,094 of the civil code states that when both parents cannot exercise their rights nor assume their duties in regard to a minor, or where both parents die without appointing any guardians in their will, a guardian would be determined according to a prioritized set of rules.

  "According to this article, grandparents living in the same household with the minor can first claim guardian status, followed by the child's paternal uncle," Wang said.

  Wang Ya-ko (王雅各), a professor of sociology at National Taipei University, said that the nation's media professionals had the responsibility to reassess their understanding of what was newsworthy.

  "It seems to me that the media manufactures news instead of reporting it. Lately, the general style of reporting has shifted toward the goriness and sensationalism seen in tabloids," Wang said.

  Chiang Chi-hsuan (江季璇), chairman of the Taiwan Social Work Union, said there was an investigative angle to Iruan's custody battle that would have been worth looking in to.

  "The media could have looked at the incident from various perspectives. For example, the media could have provided more information educating the public about resources available to the public when problems involving the rights of children arise," he said.

  "The media could have also compared how Brazilian and Taiwan government authorities handled the issue," he said.
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