Who and what makes the news: A case study of The Citizen 5 November 2010

On 19 October 2010, Jennifer Lewis attended a workshop to discuss human trafficking of children, women and girls at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. The following day, The Citizen, a daily newspaper, published a photograph of three women, including Lewis, at the workshop. The image had a correct caption but was not accompanied by a story. Lewis wrote a letter to the editor in response to the use of the image.

Letter to the Editor:

To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to take a moment to comment on your newspaper which ran on Thursday 20 October, 2010. On page 16 of this issue you featured a photograph from the Joburg Child Welfare event: Lekgotala. This photo ran alongside two unrelated articles, City ‘didn’t consult’ on open toilets and Top Cele aide’s office is burgled. See Annex A for the news clipping.

The event represented in your publication dealt with the issue of trafficking, centring on the trafficking of children, women and girls. I do not need to explain to you the graveness of such a topic, or the necessity to highlight it in the public domain.

This letter is therefore a complaint regarding the use of this picture without a story to accompany it. Before doing so, I would like to thank you for taking interest in the event, and featuring the work of Gender Links and Joburg Child Welfare. I gather from the inclusion of the photo that this must be the case. But I would like to flag some key concerns regarding the way in which this “interest” was manifested.

Read full article: https://www.genderlinks.org.za/article/use-of-images-in-the-mediaa-case-study-of-the-citizen-2010-11-05

Read the commentary: https://www.genderlinks.org.za/article/the-third-blonde-from-the-right-2010-11-08