Exclusive survey: Media coverage of social work is mostly negative

Community Care’s exclusive research shows overwhelmingly negative coverage of social workers, write Dan Lombard and Emma Maier.

The language used about social workers – mainly staff working with children – is hostile, speculative and often perjorative. Frequently stories show a lack of knowledge about the social work role and often breaking editorial guidelines in refusing to give a right of reply.

Analysis

• Here we look at the research and how Social work failure stories crowd out positive news

• The study showed how the the language used to decribe social work is often ignorant and rude. How bullying tinpot Hitlers put children at risk

Comment

• Deputy editor Emma Maier says social workers must be allowed to talk to the press

What you can do

• The media monitoring research is part of our Stand Up Now for Social Work campaign, which is calling for fair reporting of social work and is calling on social workers to act now   

The research

Here is the data showing how each newspaper scored