Back Page: In the news - An alternative take on last week's media

Using the term "conjures up images of children posing in 'provocative' positions, rather than suffering horrific abuse", it continues in a note to editors across the country. Unfortunately, it is a message that will, by and large, fall on deaf ears. A scan of the papers reveals liberal use of the words "child pornography".

"Pervert has 3,000 child porn images", says The Sheffield Star, while Lancashire paper The Citizen proclaims: "Burnley antique dealer's child porn shame".

Responsible reporting of child abuse is not the British press' forte, as coverage of the shocking Josef Fritzl case shows. The story of the Austrian father who imprisoned his daughter in a cellar and fathered children with her has been followed with ghoulish enthusiasm, spawning headlines such as The Daily Mirror's "Child victims of cellar sex beast talk in 'grunts and growls'". More recently papers report the first interview with Fritzl. "The monster speaks" is the headline in The London Paper, which shows a picture of Fritzl captioned: "Beast beside the seaside". Such language also benefits child abusers because it creates the impression they are somehow different, non-human, instead of seemingly ordinary types like Fritzl.