Abstract:

The press beyond being the ‘watchdog’ of society holds the responsibility of whistleblowing on societal anomalies like child labour related issues. Studies have shown that press coverage of child labour (CL) is not sufficient to bring the issue to light. The study adopted content analysis method. Three newspapers were selected- The Punch, The Guardian and The Sun from 2010 to 2014. The sample was made up of 420 editions of the newspapers. The newspapers were purposively selected for reasons of regularity of publication and wide circulation while the editions were selected using the multistage sampling technique. Findings revealed that out of 420 editions studied, only 94 (22.3%) stories were found on child labour related issues meaning that the coverage was not sufficient. Straight news took 74.5% of the total coverage. In conclusion, the press did not give sufficient coverage to CL and did not fulfil the interpretative role by discussing issues comprehensively. It is recommended that the press should give prominence to childrelated issues to encourage the government for implementation and strict enforcement of policies; CL issues should be reported looking at the bigger picture bringing the problem to public perspective thus creating opportunity for broader discussion of the issue. Keywords: Agenda Setting, Child Labour, Child Rights, Framing, Newspaper, Press Coverage.

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