The media reporting of the trial of 10-year-olds Bobby Thompson and Jon Venables for the murder of 2-year-old James Bulger challenged the idea of childhood as a period of innocence and replaced it with a perception as essentially evil. Newspapers' criticisms of these two particular children merged almost imperceptibly into more generalized statements about the alleged character of all children. The more recent television drama Jake's Progress also offers an extremely unhappy and damaging portrayal of childhood. More appealing aspects of Jake's character slowly emerge toward the end of the drama, but the negative portrayal seems credible only in the context of the sensational press coverage of the Bulger case and increasingly alarmist public attitudes about children and their activities. This negative image may adversely affect child protection practice by inappropriately suggesting that children may be partly responsible for the actions of their abusers. 19 references