NSPCC Sex Crime Survey

nyac I read that as 'how do you know about radical feminism?' Didn't have my reading glasses on.

I come from a working class/lower middle class family who are very politicised.

I did a Women's Studies course that was an adjunct to my prestigious journalism course. We had to do other studies. I didn't want to do them. Didn't object either.

One of the others was woodwork which did teach me something I didn't know. I made a lovely articulated, hand-painted wooden child's toy of a frog and a turntable my mum used in her cake-decorating classes.

I don't think the college knew much else what to do with us. The rest of my Women's Studies group was taken up by young women on the nursery nursing course. The tutor should have done more to involve the other students rather than lazily embracing me and pushing at an open door.

These things affect all of us and it's the job of professionals to make it happen.

Probably osmosis nyac. Experience of events that have happened to me or to others that I came into contact with through personal contact or work, which in my work gets blurred. But you can attain that contact through lots of work if you try.

Plus, my epitaph would probably be: 'Enquiring minds need to know'.

That or: 'How would you like to be remembered?'

Answer: 'By a public holiday, of course.'

Obviously the news reports are going to major on the horrific cases.

Asian women who slip away on barbiturates aren't going to feature and white women jump off balconies or under trains. But still.

Sorry to bang on about this but memories of SBS have made me think of something else which may be obvious to some people but not to the mainstream.

I was always struck by the violent methods of suicide taken by some Asian women - throwing themselves under trains, self-immolation or drinking drain cleaner.

It always struck me as: 'Fuck. That's painful.' BTW I am aware that those things could be murder.

Until I wondered about the options for relatively gentle death. How do you stockpile enough prescription drugs if your GP is from the same social group as your husband and family and is more sympathetic to them and the need for the group to save face than to you? Do you even get to go to the GP at all?

That's not a failing of SBS at all. They were fantastic and I'm sure they would have something to say if I was doing a story on that. But I don't do that any more and like everyone else, I'm busy earning a living. I'm just asking.

Thanks for coming back to me Nyas, KRITIQ and victoria.

victoria I'm not annoyed at the spin on the story by Sky. I expect it. I've done the same under orders by news editors.

What annoys me is that the NSPCC's press office appears not to anticipated it by specifically addressing the complexity of abuse suffered by teenage girls and dropping the under-11s for a while.

That is not by design but is their fault.

Some of these people will be former journalists. Or at least they should be. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe the office is staffed by people who don't understand how newsrooms work but know how they'd like them to work.

They could also have taken the stance of refusing to co-operate unless Sky, for instance, specifically talked about this issue. Maybe Jon Brown did talk about that and it was cut. What a press officer should have said is: 'No. We're talking only about this or we don't talk at all. These are our case histories. We'll do little kids next time but right now, this is our priority.'

KRITIQ it's shorter for me to say we agree in principle because I think we do. My issue here is one of professionalism by the NSPCC press office. I wonder what they think they get paid for and I wonder what they are advising senior policy staff about the media and 'disappointing' outcomes.

It's true I found Standing On My Own Two Feet a turn-off. That should be anticipated and something more accessible should be produced in tandem for reporters.

Anyway, your mention of Southall Black Sisters is really interesting. I agree that they worked with opinon-formers in parliament, local authorities and the police to influence policy change.

But they didn't neglect the press. I worked in Redbridge, Newham and Tower Hamlets and they were assiduous in cultivating friendly contacts with us and helping on the cultural aspects of stories that as a white girl from an all-white, lower-middle class background I had no idea of.

One story I remember would have got reported as a bizarre and titillating murder if not for them. A young Asian woman was found in the street in Forest Gate with ultimately fatal chemical burns in the mid-80s.

The police knew her husband had done it but were unable to give more insight. They weren't that bothered beyond clearing up a murder.

Someone from SBS explained to me the concept of 'honour killings'. I had no idea this went on. Why would I? They didn't judge. They just explained.

At the trial it transpired the woman had been taken to the workshop of a family friend and pushed alive into a barrel of sulphuric acid. The intention was to torture her as well as killing her. If they'd have pushed the lid down properly they'd have probably been able to dispose of what remained of her.

SBS's guidance resulted in a much more knowledgeable crime report. I'm not saying I'm a hero. I'm not saying the paper made much more of it after. But SBS patiently spoon-fed me because they knew I didn't understand but realised that I did care and that helping me understand might pay off in time. They must have replicated this hundreds of times because nearly 30 years on everyone knows what 'honour killings' are and we've started to do something about them.

A similar thing happened with a social worker who explained one idea behind gay adoptions - placing a girl who'd been abused by men with a single woman or a female couple to protect everyone involved.

Undoubtedly you know what I'm talking about but I didn't then and most people don't now. But if you take the time to explain it to one receptive person they will go on about it every time someone comes out with the vile Littlejohn line. Because I do.

That's all I ask of press offices.

Thanks for reading.

jifnotcif I am a journalist. You can search if you want to.

When I started training in 1983, I was taught to write in sentences of 30 words or fewer, so that most people could understand them.

It was drummed into me that just because I had a high standard of education and comprehension, not everyone else did. I might find myself writing for people who left school at 12-14 - because in case you don't know, that's what used to happen, indeed it happened to my parents - and who were as entitled to be informed as the most erudite person.

There was another, more practical, reason. I worked on typewriters on A5 paper. If you wrote in pars of one sentence you could swap them about, just renumbering the pages, if you needed to move information up and down the story without rewriting the whole thing.

Need any more proof that I've done this thing for a living for quite a long time? That's a rhetorical question.

Anyway, easy comprehension for all was the most abiding lesson of my training and informs my attitude to the dissemination of, and access to, news.

BTW I was forbidden to use split sentences, dashes and words such as 'erudite' for the same reason. But I'm going to take the chance that you can handle them.

Much later, when I began writing for websites, I was reminded to write single sentence pars because the human brain finds it difficult to process crowded information on screen.

You must have noticed this from some posts on Mumsnet and other sites. There's an awful lot more that human brains find hard to process, don't you agree?

Writing for tabloids is more difficult than writing for broadsheet readers who know quite long words. That's a fact; though I write for both. You may look it up, along with other aids to comprehension that I learned, such as the Fog Index. I don't know whether you know that and frankly, I don't care.

So, IM really-very-informed O the NSPCC press office has failed for the reasons I outlined in previous posts and now in this one.

BTW you would have been better to use a semi-colon instead of a comma between 'support' and 'don't' in your last sentence. HTH

Mrsrobertduvall

1. No;

1. Yes, I do, against people who aren't doing their jobs properly and failing vulnerable people. Do you want to give reasons to defend people who draw salaries for holding down such important jobs and yet appear to fail at them?

You two have been rude in a way that the other people who responded to my posts have not.

If those people want to come back and say I've got it wrong and they intended to be rude to me all along, that's okay. If anyone else wants to be rude I can take it.

But I'd much rather that people asked me to explain my POV, even criticised it in the coherent manner of the previous posters and debated what I think is the very important subject of what I see as the disservice done to teenage girls by one of Britain's premier child care organisations.

I'm an expert in what I do but I'm not a know-it-all. I accept that, that my first post was more heat than light and that my argument has been tempered by some careful questioning.

I want to listen to people who have reasonable arguments, whether they agree with me or not. Does anyone else want to do that?

If I gave the impression I blamed Jon Brown that was unfair of me.

He has a job to do and I've no reason to believe he doesn't do it well. He didn't perform very well on TV and the report/press release he wrote was dull but that's not his job. For all I know he communicates very well with his peers. Communicating with the press is easy when someone teaches you how.

If he's not comfortable being interviewed, and not everyone is, the press office should find someone who is and collaborate on the reports he wants to release so everyone gets his message.

Basically, yes.

Jon Brown's statement said the NSPCC needs more members of the public to be aware of abuse and how to prevent it. Yes, it does.

And yet the news coverage, such as it was, focussed on the abuse that many people are already aware of through past campaigns by the NSPCC and others - abuse of younger children usually in domestic situations. The greater level of abuse against older children, overwhelmingly girls, wasn't touched.

I know no organisation can dictate editorial lines and I understand, not least through stories I've covered, that the public and media are generally unsympathetic to stories of abused teenage girls.

That doesn't mean you don't try. You call on friendly press contacts, you set up moving case histories with girls and parents, you explain the kind of abusive situations they face and you put forward engaging people such as youth workers, police and prosecutors who are working to change their lives who will fight their corner in the press and on TV in plain language.

To me the lack of sympathy to older girls suffering abuse is a feminist issue. Many people blame teenage girls for the situations they find themselves in when they should be blaming the abusers and the society that makes them vulnerable.

Yes, keep telling us about little children. But don't ignore them once they turn 11 and have complicated lives and personalities that some people find difficult to sympathise with.

As a journalist I've worked with very good press officers from many organisations who think about what they're doing and how to show the work of their organisation and its clients. I didn't recognise anything of the kind here.

That's all

KRITIQ, yes, my beef is with the NSPCC. I don?t dislike the charity. In fact, I respect it. I think they are being done a disservice by their press office and therefore children are being done a disservice.

A great deal of information was gathered through this FOI request. I don't dispute its accuracy and I don't believe it has been misrepresented.

But I do not believe it has not been used effectively.

I do strongly believe the NSPCC should be, as you say, 'investing in awareness - raising or trying to influence policy'. They may have done that with professionals in the field of child abuse but they did not do that for the wider public.

That is their job.

The figures were not widely circulated and are contained in a research report which is not accessible to ordinary people - that includes journalists who do not have the time or inclination to rummage for information. No matter what you think of that, it's true.

I'm glad you think the Jon Brown's article is jargony and befuddling. That's not a particular failing of his. It is the job of a press officer to make his words accessible while maintaining accuracy.

Like you I've seen some awful press releases. That's not an excuse. This is an important job and it wasn't done.

They failed to persuade news organisations to pick up the story let alone report more widely on the issue of child sexual abuse than most people's definition of a child eg someone very young.

It is not the NSPCC who are 'perpetuating myths'. I apologise. Those were my words. But it is the job of the press office to dispel myths, or more properly, widely-held perceptions. They did not do this.

I accept they have little control over news reports but it is their job to try. On the evidence here I don't think they've tried. The NSPCC is a high-profile charity with respected views. I find it difficult to believe news organisations wouldn't be interested in their message if that message was conveyed properly.

I agree with you that a child is someone aged up to 19. Many people do not grasp that. It is the press office's job to help them to.

The fact that most journalists don't rummage is an advantage because you can lead them wherever you want as long as you back it up with evidence.

Evidence like two thirds of abuse happening to teenagers, most of whom are female, some of whom may not be garner much sympathy from the general public because of their personal circumstances.

It is the NSPCC's job to make people aware that abuse doesn't happen only to sympathetic victims - that's my word again - but I don't know how else to describe people many people might not have much love for but who they should care about.

The only national coverage I could see was Sky's cliched view of a playroom, and use of the figure of one-third which related to children under 11.

They did use someone who had been abused to her late teens but her story reinforced the view that sex abuse starts with a young victim and happens in a domestic setting.

I've heard her story before. I'm not belitting her experience or disputing her right to keep describing it, but it's the NSPCC's job to provide other voices and different experiences.

As I've said, they have no control over editorial decisions but they could try to influence them.

I do apologise for calling it a survey. It is accurate to use Jon Brown's descriptions which are investigations or a collation of figures.

Now it's my turn not to understand the point you're making

You say you think Jon Brown might not be overall head of strategy for the NSPCC. You might be right. But he is described as Head of Strategy and Development for Sexual Abuse and is the appropriate person to talk on this matter and was put up do it.

So what's your point? Do you think he wasn't the appropriate person? Do you think there was someone more appropriate? Surely, that's the decision of the NSPCC.

I do care about the issue. I work for a wage. My job is not in the field of child abuse but I do understand what's required from a press office.

NSPCC press officers are also being paid a wage. I don't know but imagine it's a pretty big department headed by a Director of Communications, his or her Deputy, a Communications Manager, possibly a deputy and some senior and junior press officers.

This costs a lot of money. Essentially, that's what I'm asking is my final paragraph - I don't think it's money well-spent.

Do you think these jobs should be done by volunteers or interested amateurs?

I don't. I believe they should be done by competent people on appropriate salaries for the sector. Undoubtedly they're being paid. But in this instance they are not competent.

No problem nyac

KRITIQ I am going to try to be clear and I am certainly going to avoid personal insults. I would be grateful if you would return the favour.

Let's start all over again and see if we can find some common ground. I'm confident that we ought to be able to find some because we are adults and I guess neither of us like people hurting young people or their pain being misconstrued in the media.

My particular issue here is the handling of the NSPCC's report arising from their FOI request.

The way I took it from Sky's report is that a third of sexual offences are against young people up to 11years old. Two thirds are against people from 11-17. No timescale that I noticed. Those are approximate figures.

I was angry that Sky appeared to be focussing unduly on 'child abuse' as most people would understand it - eg against so-called 'innocent' victims, rather than concentrated on the more 'unpalatable' area of abuse against 11-17 year olds.

My quotation marks. Forgive me, but I know who Society finds the more sympathetic age group and I guess you do too. Or maybe not. I don't want to put words in your mouth so please say if you agree or not.

I first believed that it wasn't reported properly. That's my default mode, even as a journalist, because that's the way things are.

But thanks to you and CanCant I looked into it and realised that it was reported as best as could be expected and that the NSPCC had failed grievously in getting their message across.

It's not their message. That's the message of the human beings being hurt that the NSPCC is not only being paid to deliver, but has a moral reponsibility to convey.

I have no idea what the terms of that request were because Jon Brown, the NSPCC's Head of Strategy, does not specify them in his blog.

Neither did he do that when he was all over the TV today. Though possibly skilled at something, it wasn't at putting his point across in friendly interviews. That was another gross failure. If he couldn't do that then the NSPCC should have someone who could. If not, then what is their PR budget for?

You couldn't find the report into the FOI request when you Googled it, not because I failed to find the links for you but because it wasn't there.

You can't make head or tail of the links I did give you because the message isn't clear. Feel free to find clearer links.

Even if the press had the time and inclination, it is not their responsibility to do the NSPCC's work for them.

Any professional press office will produce clear press releases and provide good spokespeople to put over their views rather than hoping the press will 'rummage' around for the information.

I'm interested and gave up because there didn't appear to be a coherent point. Do you think anyone else would be interested in a rummage?

As said before, what do you think their PR budget is for and what you think the department should do?

How much was wasted on this so-called campaign and the continuing efforts of their press office and what do you think might be the outcome for abused young people if it was done properly?