This report discusses the difficulties in reporting human rights issues in the media and in addition, makes suggestions to the journalistic profession, policymakers and human rights advocates in order to improve the quality and consistency of work in this area. The report is primarily concerned with the media’s ability to provide accurate and reliable information on human rights issues. Quite a bit of space is devoted to human rights atrocities in the mainstream media today for a variety of reasons however there are questions as to the quality of this work. This report is focused mainly on how the media goes about bringing human rights to the public sphere. While this report is based on a “Northern” perspective it still provides insight into just how information today is relayed to the masses and why when it receives media attention is it mostly due to gross injustices of extreme and violent ends that have occurred in other countries. In addition, this report looks at issues from the perspective of those who work in the media and discusses the constraints journalist’s face in their work. The report is particularly useful to journalists as well as human rights monitors who are interested in the media’s role in reporting human rights.
