World Media Launch 24-hour Global Broadcast on Universal Children's Day

More than 800 media organizations from 70 countries and regions launched a 24-hour relay broadcast for children's rights on Universal Children's Day, which falls on Friday.

The global media campaign, also called the "Global News Day for Children" program, was initiated by Xinhua News Agency and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to highlight the international media's role in helping improve children's living environments and promoting their healthy development.

Xinhua has been working with all participating media organizations from 8 a.m. (Beijing time) Friday to launch 16 hours of Chinese-language coverage and eight hours of English-language coverage of education, culture, globalization, environment protection, disability, sport, charity, conflict, and traditions that are closely connected to children's lives and development.

It includes the sharing of TV specials, joint TV coverage of the global events marking Universal Children's Day, exchanges of TV programs and the live broadcasts of text, photos, audio and video on each other's platforms.

These reports, including hard news, features, commentaries and backgrounders, all carry "Universal Children's Day" in the headlines and are categorized into special fields such as "rights and interests," "on being strong," "education" and "environmental protection."

Xinhua has mobilized all its 31 domestic bureaus and 118 overseas branches to provide subscribers with news and information in text, photos, graphics, audio, video, online and text message formats and in eight languages: Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese and Japanese.

"Children are our future. To strive for the better life of children across the world is the responsibility of our generation and commitment of myself as secretary general," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a video interview with Xinhua, which was broadcast at the launching ceremony.

"The well-being of our children is of utmost importance to the United Nations and to the whole world," he said.

Ban Ki-moon also sent a message for the well-being of children across the world to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Universal Children's Day.

The message, written and signed by the UN secretary-general in English and Chinese, reads: "Children are our future. We must work for health, education, equality and protection for every child in the world."

At the World Media Summit held just over a month ago, Chinese President Hu Jintao expounded the responsibility the media should have for the society. He pointed out that the media should take up its responsibility for society, should keep in mind and stick to that responsibility, and should disseminate news and information in a true-to-fact, accurate, comprehensive and objective way.

"It was during the media summit that I proposed to the heads of all the media institutions present that a large-scale publicity campaign and around-the-clock worldwide live coverage on children's issues be conducted on November the 20th, the Universal Children's Day," said Li Congjun, president of Xinhua, at a video address to the launching ceremony.

"What moved me is that the UNICEF has offered its full support to my initiative, by asking its offices in more than 150 countries and regions to provide support to Xinhua's multimedia news coverage," he said.

"We are jointly holding this ceremony to issue the Chinese version of UNICEF's special edition of the "State of the World's Children" report for the 20th anniversary of the Convention," he said.

"We would like to call this year's Nov. 20 Global News Day for Children, because it is the first time in history that media institutions around the world have joined to focus on a shared coverage of a subject," said Li.

"I believe that this year's Nov. 20 will be remembered in the history of global children protection," he said.

World leaders adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in United Nation's General Assembly on Nov. 20th, 1989. Since its inception 20 years ago, the convention has become the most ratified human rights treaty in history, said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman at a video address.

"This is a testament to the common understanding among countries that children have the right to education, to survive and develop, to be protected from violence, abuse and exploitation, to have their views respected and to benefit from actions taken intheir best interest," she said.

"We hope this important milestone for children will be celebrated widely. That's why UNICEF is partnering with Xinhua News Agency on the Global News Day for Children," she said.

"The gap between the principles of the convention and the reality faced by millions of children is still far too wide, we appreciate the role of the media in raising public awareness of both the standards enshrined in the convention and the actual situation of our children," she said.

"The Convention on the Rights of the Child remains a universal standard for building a better world, a world in which the best interests of children are our primary concern to all," she added.

The Chinese government has always attached high importance to the improvement and protection of children's rights, Su Fengjie, deputy head of the Office of the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council.

China has acted to fulfill its responsibilities to the convention and ensured children can realize their rights to life and development, Su said.

"During the last two decades child survival and development in China have steadily improved. The under-five mortality rate was reduced by 54 per cent between 1990 and 2008, saving the lives of hundreds of thousands young children each year," said Dr. Hana Brixi, UNICEF China Officer-in-Charge and Chief of Social Policy and Economic Analysis.

The media were bound to shoulder the social responsibility of raising international concern over children's living environments, said Zhou Xisheng, vice president of Xinhua.

"Through the global media's concerted efforts, we are certain to shed more light on children's healthy development," he said.

The 24-hour coverage was mooted at the World Media Summit in Beijing in early October. Summit participants agreed that humanitarian concern should focus first on children, and the true value of the media lay in its accurate, objective, fair and just news and information services to promote the pursuit of peace, development and cooperation.

(Xinhua News Agency November 20, 2009)