CELEBRATE, DON'T VILIFY, YOUTH

This summer, take time to note the wholesome things young people do.

They're working, going to school and volunteering in the community. They
want us to see them as good citizens.

But that's not the image many older people have. The winter 2002 edition of
The Children's Beat: A Journal of Media Coverage says the picture adults
have of youths is negative.

The magazine blames the media. It reports on a new study by the Casey
Journalism Center on Children and Families, which showed that "most news
stories about children's lives are quick hits of crime and horror." The
context is missing.

The study measured how 12 daily newspapers and four national TV networks
covered child abuse and neglect, child care, children's health, teen
parenthood, youth crime and violence. The study of 1,065 newspaper editions
found that 94 percent of the stories were on youth violence or child
maltreatment.

Only 3 percent were on child care, 2 percent on teen pregnancy, and 1
percent on child health insurance. TV coverage was no better.

Of the 354 newscasts, 96 percent of the stories analyzed were about
children as criminals or as victims of abuse or neglect. The magazine said
youth crime fell in the 1990s, and most criminals are adults. Yet, teen
crime is covered at a much higher rate than adult crime.

The repeated negative stories "tend to stereotype children as violent,
amoral and beyond help," the magazine said. "The public seems misinformed
in its fears for young children and in its fears of teens. Poll after poll
shows that the general public, including teens, holds a pessimistic view of
young people."

I think a recent "Voices of Youth" study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman
Foundation gives a more accurate view of today's young people than what
polls show. That report said most pursue the American dream and work hard
to succeed.

But fewer than two-fifths of the respondents said our leaders listen to
people their age.

"We have the greatest generation of young people right under our noses,"
said Elizabeth Budd, executive director of Greater Kansas City Public
Achievement, a youth civic education initiative. "I definitely think the
media image is inaccurate.

"It does a great disservice to our young people. They feel the heat of that
image."

Young people are more serious than the media think, said Stacey
Daniels-Young director of research and evaluation at Kauffman.

Young people I got to know in the Class of 1999 at Washington High School
in Kansas City, Kan., helped me understand how industrious and
community-focused their generation is. The class president, Krista
Cunningham, this year helped raise thousands of dollars for a woman whose
Basehor, Kan., business was destroyed by fire.

"Most of the people I know like to help people," said Cunningham, 21, who
since graduating works full time and is going to college to become a drug
and alcohol addiction counselor. "I consider them upstanding citizens
rather than dangerous people.

"Stereotyping is a big problem nowadays. One person does something wrong,
and that labels the whole group. I don't think that's fair."

The media overplay negative stories about young people involving crimes in
Kansas City, Kan. "That's not how all young people are," said Crystal
Barrientos, a working 20-year-old mother of two children.

Martin A. Bass, 21, said young people were involved in community programs,
had jobs and attend college. "There are just as many bad grown folks as
there are young people," he said.

Courtney G. Franklin, 21, agreed. "The people I hang around are pretty
decent," said Franklin, a married mother of a 2-year-old.

William Hawkins, a 21-year-old electrical engineering student at Kansas
State University, added: "The ones I know are nothing like the people on
TV. The people I know are successful. They're in school trying to make
something of themselves."

Contrary to news reports, my young Washington High School friends are the
rule not the exception.