How the media can stop its biased reporting about domestic violence and familicides
- Don't refer to domestic violence as a "dispute." Abusing someone is not a quarrel.
- Don't call him a "nice guy." Nice guys don't murder women and children. Being cordial to his co-workers doesn't make him a "nice guy".
- Don't write more positive comments about the perpetrator than about the victim.
- "Snapped" is not a mental diagnosis. Most perpetrators have a history of control, jealousy or abuse (even if his neighbors really weren't close enough to him to know about it.)
- Don't call him a "man" if he was a "father" or "husband" of the victim -- especially if you would use "mother" for a female perpetrator. The relationship is newsworthy.
- Don't imply that it was caused by a "custody dispute". Custody issues are another manifestation of an abuser's harassment, intimidation, and punishment of a woman.
- Say whether the perpetrator had shared child custody or visitation rights so the public gets to know about bad policies and decisions in our family courts.
- Find out why a child victim lived with the father -- and where the child's real mother is.
- Don't call stepmothers "mothers"-- especially if they were criminally complicit.
- Report perpetrators' prior charges or convictions (yes, you can).
- Don't call men's lies "hoaxes" or other euphemisms. Call them lies or false allegations.
- Don't use "alleged" to describe acts that were witnessed, confessed, or proved.
- Don't call violent crimes against others "tragedies".
-- Partly based on "ten tips" information provided by stopfamilyviolence.org Also see http://justice.posterous.com/chesterfield-indiana-man-was-facing-child-mol and http://justice.posterous.com/johnson-city-tennessee-father-an-ex-con-with
