RADAR Release: RADAR Reports Success in Media Coverage of DV

Five years ago, the Washington Post was one of the most ardent supporters for the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). News articles, columns, and editorials appeared on a regular and continuing basis, all designed to convince wavering lawmakers to vote “yes” for this $1 billion dollar-a-year pork.

Last year the Washington Post knew that VAWA would be coming up for renewal in 2005, so they ordered up more DV blood-and-guts stories. In December the Washington Post ran a three-part, high-octane series on Maternal Homicide.

Click "Read more..." for more.But instead of attracting accolades, the series received sharp criticism from columnists representing the full gamut of political persuasions, including Wendy McElroy, Stephen Baskerville, Richard Davis, Michael Getler, Jack Shafer, and Glenn Sacks.

Just as importantly, thousands of persons made phone calls, sent e-mails, and wrote letters to protest three articles that were obviously biased, inflammatory, and contemptuous of men.

It has now been five months since that testament to Yellow Journalism appeared on the front pages of the Washington Post. Normally, the Post would have run at least 10 grisly articles on DV by now, all vilifying men, all ignoring that women are just as likely to abuse their male partners.

But times have changed. During the last five months, the Post has run only one DV article -- and that was written by a non-WP staffer. Of course, RADAR issued an Alert about that article, just to remind the WP editors that we’re still paying attention.

Of course, it’s possible that once VAWA is re-introduced, the Washington Post will go back to its old ways. But we like to think that RADAR has already had a major impact on how the Washington Post and other newspapers are reporting the DV story.

So to every person who has responded to a RADAR Alert and sent an e-mail, made a telephone call, or written a letter, we say, “Working together with conviction and determination, we can really make a difference.”

Thank you for your support of RADAR.

P.S. VAWA is due to be re-introduced any day now, and we will have our work cut out for us! Sign up now to receive RADAR’s e-lerts by visiting our website: http://www.mediaradar.org/.

NOTICE: This story was migrated from the old software that used to run Mensactivism.org. Unfortunately, user comments did not get included in the migration. However, you may view a copy of the original story, with comments, at the following link:

http://news.mensactivism.org/articles/05/05/18/2127203.shtml