Save the Children hosted a Media Workshop on Child Health Reporting in Beijing on 4th June 2010, with the participation of child health experts, senior health reporters, health communications researchers as well as reporters from 15 national and Beijing local media organisations.
Mr. Wyndham James, Country Director of Save the Children China Programme, first presented the efforts made by Save the Children in promoting child health and called for active involvement of everyone, including the journalists, in the Newborn and Child Survival Campaign, a large-scale global campaign initiated by Save the Children from 2009.
Dr. Dai Yaohua, professor from the Capital Institute of Pediatrics, briefly introduced the health status of children under five in China as well as basic knowledge, policies and measures on child health. Su Jing, researcher from Tsinghua International Center for Communications, started from two vaccine cases to explain media responsibilities on child health reporting, and discussed relevant issues with the participants.
Three senior reporters then shared lessons in child health reporting based on their own experiences, including Zhao Anping from Health Times, Zhu Yu from Xinhua News Agency and Hao Weijiang from China Women’ Journal.
A practical exercise was specially designed for this workshop, i.e. the Topic Selection Discussion for the 2010 World Breastfeeding Week. Ding Bing, China Coordinator of World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), first presented the background and mission of the WABA and the theme of 2010 World Breastfeeding Week. Then, reporters were divided into three groups to plan thematic activities and select topics. Finally, one representative from each group made presentation to the large group. A judging panel consisting of Ding Bing, Dai Yaohua and Zhu Yu analysed and commented their representations.
Media are playing a critical role in health communications, especially in health of infants and children. This year, the 5th China Health Communication Conference will be held, which is co-sponsored by the Ministry of Health and Tsinghua University. Save the Children provides strong support to the conference by setting up an "Award for Good Stories on Child Health Reporting" and will commend a certain number of excellent works on child health reporting at the conference in November 2010.
This Media Workshop on Child Health Reporting aimed to promote effective reporting on child health by media in China and improve the quality of reporting. All participating reporters thought the workshop was very helpful for them to increase knowledge and broaden vision. They promise to pay more attention to child health and produce more excellent news works in the future.
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