Ethical aspects of preparing journalistic materials about children and for children’s audiences: A humanistic approach

Thе article examines a two-pronged problem: the need to develop fundamental documents on the Russian media’s observance of humanistic principles, when preparing materials about childhood, as well as the lack of a professional journalistic school within which such approaches are formed and supported. The author turns to scientific research in the field of deontology and philosophy of journalism and comes to the conclusion, that the implementation of tasks to humanize the information space depends not only on the level of the development of media ethics, but also on the will of journalists, the political situation, and the structure of the media market at the stage of its economic transformation. In an aggressive media environment and when the professional journalistic community ignores ethical principles, the most vulnerable audience group subject to negative influence are minors. Today, some editorial offices deliberately deviate from the norms of morality and ethics in the process of creating a potentially “saleable” information product, while children and adolescents, according to statistics, are regularly indirect consumers of non-target content. That is why the author of the article chooses media texts from professional media as an empirical basis, since their authors, unlike many bloggers and content creators on social networks, as editorial staff, are aware of the responsibility not only at the legislative but also at the corporate level. Certain ethical charters and standards ratified by journalistic organizations in Russia contain recommendations for the preparation of media materials that address the topic of childhood directly or indirectly. A detailed analysis of the presented documents allows us to conclude that some provisions adopted in the early 2000s have lost their relevance, and today it is necessary not only to revise their content, but also to raise the question among practitioners about the need to show greater attention to measures of deterring aggressive rhetoric, as well as the question about the introduction of new self-regulation mechanisms.