In May 2007, a piece appeared on the site about BBC bias in their feature of stalking (link) and this week they have surpassed themselves in their reporting on domestic violence. On both occasions the BBC systematically and purposely fails to mention male victims despite the plethora of statistics and evidence available.
On Thursday 12th July, the BBC held a Domestic Violence Day which included a news report by Alison Holt featured on the Six 'O' Clock news (link)about a new head-cam worn by police officers in Plymouth (link), the plight of Asian women (link) and also a piece entitled "I knew he was going to belt me" (link).
Where the bias comes from is that the articles do not mention male domestic violence victims at all, they only feature the statistics on female victims and also only offer links to organisations such as Refuge and Women's Aid and none to Men's Aid (link) , The Mankind Initiative (link) or the Male Advice Line (link).
There is plenty of research on male domestic violence victims including the catch-all briefing (link) featured on this site. There is no mention that:-
- Men make up 24% of domestic violence victims in the past five years
- 1 in 6 men will become victims of domestic violence in their lifetime
- There are no male-only refuges in the UK as opposed to over 470 for women.
- There are only three small charities funded mainly by donations helping male victims whilst female charities receive huge state funding
- Local authorities receive £59 million per year in government funding to support female domestic violence victims and receive nothing to support men.
Why does the national BBC news consistently ignore male domestic violence victims in their reporting? In their recent report "From See-Saw to Wagon Wheel" about impartiality (link) one of the 12 guiding principles on avoiding impartiality states:-
Impartiality involves breadth of view, and can be breached by omission. It is not necessarily to be found on the centre ground.
It seems clear that many at the BBC seem content to ignore this and continue to omit male victims and also portray only men as the perpetrators of domestic violence and only women as victims.
Editors Note:
Steve Moxon, the author of a forthcoming book - The Woman Racket, is urging everyone to complain to the BBC via the Mens Aid site - please see here (link).
For anyome wishing to complain to the BBC, please link to their complaints section here (link).
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