PBS=CBS
Another example of foundations run amok by bias and liberal lies. Symptomatic of everything that's wrong with PBS-CBP-NPR whatever.
The producers apparently do not subscribe to the idea that an argument can be made more convincing by giving the other side a fair presentation. . . . [T]his broadcast is so slanted as to raise suspicions that either the family courts of America have gone crazy or there must be another side to the story.
There were numerous objections to this program before it ran. Doesn't PBS have ANY obligation to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't happen?
Whoever was responsible for putting this on, and whoever allowed it to go forward in spite of all those complaints, should be fired, at the very least.
By the way, why do Republicans vote to refund this sorry organization every year?
FYI: Here's an example where "Breaking the Silence" was shown to judges and legislators:
http://trishwilson.typepad.com/blog/2005/11/breaking_the_si_1.html
EXCERPTS:
November 18, 2005
"Breaking The Silence" Shown In Massachusetts
"Breaking The Silence: Children's Stories" and "The Battered Mother's Custody Project" were both shown at the State House in Massachusetts on October 20. There was a panel discussion after the showing of "Breaking The Silence",
...
Lots of people who work on family law issues were invited to view both movies. These people are in need of educating regarding what happens to abused mothers and children in court. They needed to know that batterers are able to get custody when bogus "syndromes" like Parental Alienation Syndrome are introduced in court cases.
...
"Breaking The Silence: Children's Stories" is being shown to legislators and family law professionals around the country.
Mother's Research and Reference Center
New Documentary to Court TV, Frontline etc.
Family Court Failures
Please READ
[Note: Please respond the author of the message below, Meena Fox at
Abusesolutions@aol.com (and cc me at AuthorTalia@aol.com) Thanks!]
From Meena Fox:
Today I met with Dominique Lasseur of Tatge/Lasseur Productions,
who just finished making the PBS movie that comes out this Thursday
about Protective Parents, Family Court failure and PAS entitled "Breaking
The Silence: Children's Stories." Dominique is passionately interested in
continuing his work in this area, as he can see how raising the public's
consciousness about this problem and indeed, creating a public outcry
about it, will be key to achieving the reforms we seek in Family Court.
Dominique would like to focus next on judicial accountability for
these tragedies, and sees media exposure of the judges' heinous
misconduct in these child abuse cases as the best way to make an
impact on their future behavior. I know you will all agree that this
is a project that would be worth its weight in gold if he can pull it
off. He envisions marketing a series on Family Court failure to Court
TV, Frontline, America Undercover, or all three, if we can get him
enough information, footage and support.
The reason he met with me about this project is because I know all of
you and he was hoping I could rally you troops to help him with his
project, and I assured him I would be glad to. He is interested in
getting together a powerful collection of video tapes of Protective
Parents' court hearings, the type he used in "Breaking The Silence:
Children's Stories" in which Richard Ducote was arguing a motion in
Shelly's case to keep her daughter Manya from being given into the
custody of her father after disclosing years of abuse by him, where
the judge said the timing is suspicious, therefore I will deny the
motion and send her to live with the father. These types of courtroom
video tapes are used in most California Courtrooms in lieu of a court
reporter, and are available for sale at the court clerk's office. I
assume that most other states use these tapes as well. Shelly's case
was in Washington State, and Dominique has good footage from a Nevada
court too. So far these are the only two court tapes that he has, but he
wants to compile a big collection of them and use them as the basis of
his new series.
Dominique needs each of you to send him videotapes from your cases
where judges were awful to Protective Parents, i.e. treated them
disrespectfully or inappropriately, blew up at them, or just made
completely illogical or punitive rulings against them, or all of the
above.
Dominique requests that we contact all the Protective Parents who
might have access to such evidence and ask them to look in their
legal files, try to determine what day these rulings occurred on, and
then each order the tape from the courtroom for that hearing. Next he
needs each Protective Parent to preview the tape and keep track of
where on the tape the good footage is, so that when we forward them
to him, all he has to do is put the tape in the VCR (or the DVD on
the computer), and watch it, and he'll see the best footage. He does
not have time to watch hours and hours of tapes looking for when the
right hearing was called and trying to find the outrageous parts, he
needs us to do that for him.
Once we have compiled a good collection, he will make these into a
proposal piece to market a series for Court TV on Family Court
failure to protect child abuse victims. He could also market the idea
to Frontline or to HBO America Undercover, or all three, if we can
get him enough footage to start with. He has excellent footage that
Richard got him from Shelly's trial, only some of which he included
in the movie.
I suggested that we ask Crystal Streiloff to see if she can get
Dominique some videos from her case. I think that anything from Wendy
Titelmans or Idelle Clarks cases would be great examples. These were
just my first thoughts because these are cases I know a lot about and
worry a lot about all the time, but I know there are thousands going on
all around the country and each of you knows at least ten others who
you could forward this email to or suggest that I get in contact with.
Please do so!
Anyone who has the videos of their children's MDIC Interview where
the child discloses about the abuse should send Dominique a copy of
that.
Also, anyone who has audiotapes of conversations with their kids on
the phone where the kids are pleading to be protected from the abuse
or telling about the abuse should send these in too. Shelly and
Manya's conversation like this in the Breaking the Silence Movie was
probably the most compelling part.
In my experience many Protective Parents have videotaped child
visitation exchanges and have footage of children screaming and
pleading not to be forced to go with the abuser. This kind of footage
is so powerful! I have seen the tape of Idelle's daughter in this
situation and it made me come completely unglued.
Also, some children left in the custody of their abusers stop eating
and become anorexic. Before and after photographs of victim children
in this type of situation would be very visually compelling. Amy
Neustein, Crystal Streiloff, do you have these? Anyone else? Send
them in!
Make sure that each tape or photograph is clearly marked with the
Protective Parent's Name and contact information, and whether or not
the face of the child or mom must be blurred out by Dominique in
order to protect their identity. Clearly, if the tape they send is
their only copy and they need it back, they should either get a copy
made first and mail that, or include a letter saying by when it must
be returned to them, in which case Dominique would need them to also
give him permission to make a copy for him to use. He said it does not
matter if the quality of the tapes is bad, that this is just a
reality of the way they are made and will not affect their impact.
I want to start compiling a master list of who are all the current
Protective Parents so that we can be sure that we ask everyone to
participate, both in this project and in the California Protective
Parents Association's Protective Parent Survey, which so far has only
had 157 respondents! You seem to be the ones with the most contact
with moms, so would you be willing to help us get the moms going on
this filming project?
Please forward this email to all the Protective Parents you can think
of, and urge them to email me their name, email address, phone
number, mailing address, and if they would be willing to participate
in sending information in to Dominique or at least in filling out the
two page questionnaire for the Protective Parent Survey Research, or
if they would simply like to be included on the list of Protective
Parents so that they can network with each other or get support from
each other or get group emails about Family Court reform initiatives
that Child Abuse Solutions, Inc. is working on.
Time is of the essence on this one, since there will be a swell of
interest starting on Thursday evening when the movie first airs on
PBS, and Dominique would like to capitalize on that media interest to
start marketing the idea to the stations he thinks a series on this
topic would be best suited for. Will you please help me help him get
this information together? I am willing to be the one to receive all
the tapes and photos and keep them organized for Dominique. Please
send everything to me at:
Meera Fox
Executive Director
Child Abuse Solutions, Inc.
2625 Alcatraz Ave. #607
Berkeley, CA 94705
Call me with any questions at: 510-521-0438
and have all the Protective Parents you can think of anywhere in the
country email me at abusesolutions@aol.com to get on the master list
of Protective Parents!
Make sure everyone knows about the incredible new book available from
Barnes and Noble entitled "From Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers are
Running from the Family Courts--and What Can Be Done About It" by
Amy Neustein and Michael Lesher. If every one of us sent one copy of
this book to our local Family Law Judge we would see a huge change
in how these cases are handled. I sent one copy to one judge who cares,
and he sent 25 copies to 25 other judges, on his own steam and at
his own expense! Please try this.
Note that Dominique is working on getting permission to distribute
copies of the movie. Child Abuse Solutions, Inc. is planning to
purchase the first 250 copies to include in a mailing going out to
all family court judges in California about the devastating effects
the PAS fad has had on abused children and their Protective Parents.
I have volunteered my web site, www.childabusesolutions.com, as a
place where Dominique can make the Breaking The Silence: Children's
Stories documentary available for sale in the future.
Please note that Garland Waller's excellent documentary "Small
Justice" is available from Intermedia, and would be an excellent gift
for your local family law judge as well.
Finally, encourage everyone you know to watch Dominique Lasseur and
Catherine Tatge's PBS documentary this Thursday night: Breaking The
Silence: Children's Stories. Please let Dominique know if you have
any connections to individuals or corporations who would be willing
to provide funding to get this new series on Family Court Failure
project going. Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation has generously
underwritten both Breaking the Silence Documentaries, but this new
project will need similar support from other organizations or
companies or people who care. If we all put our creative thinking
heads together, I know we can help him. Please let him know any ideas
or leads in this regard. I can forward his email to anyone who wants to
contact him directly about any of these issues.
Thank you!
For any Protective Parents or concerned professionals receiving this
email as forwarded from one of the original people I sent it out to
who do not know me or of me, I have included my bio, and I encourage
you to visit my website at www.childabusesolutions.com.
Meera Fox, J.D.:
[Before becoming a successful sole practitioner representing
Protective Parents of sexually abused children in Family Court
custody proceedings, Meera Fox worked for attorneys Richard Ducote
and for Alan Rosenfeld, helping Protective Parents in Family Courts
all over the country. She also represented juvenile wards of the
Dependency court as an attorney for Children's Law Offices. After a
three-year stint as director of new programs at the Child Abuse
Forensic Institute, working with Seth Goldstein, Ms. Fox now serves
as the Executive Director of Child Abuse Solutions, Inc. Ms. Fox
regularly speaks at conferences, testifies before the California
legislature on child protection bills, and trains court professionals
on various aspects of child abuse and the law. Meera Fox is a proud
member of the Family Court Reform Coalition.
Child Abuse Solutions, Inc. is a non-profit educational organization
committed to training Family Court and other related professionals to
be responsive to the needs of abused children. It offers workshops,
training, consultation, advice, referrals and resources to judges,
evaluators, mediators, and attorneys. Its education focuses on best
practices in child custody evaluation, litigation and adjudication
involving allegations of child abuse, sexual abuse, and domestic
violence.]
http://tinyurl.com/ckphb
PBS Internal Memo Tells Affiliates to Stonewall Protesters
A source at PBS sent us this confidential internal memo on Friday. The memo is an instruction sheet that PBS's national office has dispensed to their affiliates to instruct them as to how to deal with the thousands of people who have called or written them to protest the anti-father documentary Breaking the Silence. As you'll notice, the common theme of this memo is to stonewall protesters.
As you may know, a men's and fathers' issues columnist named Glenn Sacks has asked his readers to contact PBS and member stations regarding BREAKING THE SILENCE, which is scheduled to air tomorrow, October 20. Mr. Sacks believes that this documentary on domestic violence is unfair to fathers. His call to action can be found at http://www.glennsacks.com/pbs/.
In order to prepare you for any phone calls, letters or email you might receive, we have provided in this document an array of materials. We will also put it in Connect, in System-wide Information and in Communicate/Promote – under Announcements and Viewer Services. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need anything further.
snip
Phone Call Message Points
We recommend not trying to convince the callers of the program’s validity, but simply to listen to their complaints and assure them that they’re comments are being taken seriously and will be shared. Some basic responses are below.
If they ask for contact information for the producers, they can email director Catherine Tatge at tatgeprod@tatgeprod.com.
* PBS stands by the broadcast of this program, which is an independent film that provides insight on various aspects of this very complicated and emotional topic.
* The purpose of the film was to chronicle the impact of domestic violence and children and the recurring failings of family courts across the country to protect the children they are meant to serve.
* We appreciate your taking the time to call us about your concerns. I will forward your comments to our President and CEO [or GM], programming executives as well as the filmmakers themselves.
Viewer Response Letter:
Thank you for taking the time to write to PBS about your concerns regarding BREAKING THE SILENCE: CHILDREN’S STORIES. Comments from our viewers - both positive and negative – are the best guides we have to make future programming decisions.
We have forwarded your observations to the filmmakers - producer Dominique Lasseur and director Catherine Tatge - who have asked us to share their thoughts about the documentary with you.
snip
http://tinyurl.com/e47tv
bump
I am glad this is getting recognized now. I lost my daughter because I would not retaliate in kind when my ex chose this weapon.
In a fair world, this would be classified as criminal child abuse at least on a par with a severe beating, but because it is not overtly violent or physical, it is not. I ascribe that to an anti-male bias in our society. Very generally, men fight physically, women use tactics like PAS.
There is a whole list of shows PBS will not dare run. For example, they would never run a show that shows how badly children of homosexual couples turn out, or the psychological problems they end up with. Nor will they show anything that examines the medical problems of being gay, and the fact that most gays die by mid 40’s.
The name should be changed to PCBS. Politically Correct BS.
Why would they? This is where their future business is created.
I hope PBS and NPR make a thousand of these type of "stories" so we can shut them down once and for all.
Veteran producers...frequent contributors to Moyer's Now program...
Exactly. Serial disinformation experts.