The Denton Record-Chronicle and the Dallas Morning News are planning on doing a series of stories about domestic violence for the rest of 2014 (more info below). From the articles that were written announcing the series, I'm a little concerned that they're not planning on doing anything different than any other news organization has done -- tell gruesome stories about DV homicides, highlight a prevention program or two and then ignore the topic for another five or 10 years.
That experience, and the last nine years of reporting about ACEs, trauma-informed and resilience-building practices has led me to offer these suggestions to news organizations:
- Family violence (in fact, all interpersonal violence) needs to be an integral part of a health beat.
- A solution-oriented approach should be taken with every story.
- The system that grapples with family violence needs to be analyzed to determine whether it's a trauma-informed system or not.
- And a hard look at the roots of DV should be taken: i.e., that it starts with children who live in a family with violence -- that they're shaped by that ongoing trauma to become perpetrators and/or victims of family violence themselves.
From the Denton Record-Chronicle: Tracking deadly domestic violence
In 2012, 1,144 homicides occurred in Texas. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, 15 percent of them were committed by a family member. Add in ex-spouses, boyfriends and girlfriends, and the number rises to almost 1 in 4.
These horrific, deeply personal stories often go untold or are forgotten quickly. But for the rest of this year the Denton Record-Chronicle will join The Dallas Morning News in tracking and focusing on domestic violence homicides in Dallas, Denton, Collin and Rockwall counties, in a series called “Deadly Affection.”
The News and the Record-Chronicle will look at the victims and perpetrators in fatal cases, including not just husbands and wives, but nuclear and extended families, as well as same-sex and opposite-sex relationships. We hope to find the details that will tell who these people were, how their relationship developed, the extent, duration and type of violence in their home and how it affected others.
And the Dallas Morning News: Campaigns Aren't Enough to Stop Domestic Violence
Reporters Diane Jennings and Sarah Mervosh will take the lead in monitoring a four-county area — Dallas, Collin, Denton and Rockwall — to catalog the tragedies in which, as Diane writes, “home becomes a crime scene and loved ones become murderers.”
...We could stop asking the wrong questions, such as “Why didn’t she just leave?” and “Why didn’t she press charges?” and “Why did she think he would change?”
The questions we need to ask are things like “Why does he think he’s entitled to ‘own’ another person?” and “Why does anyone think hitting somebody is the way to get what you want?” and “Why can’t he manage his temper? What is he, a baby?”
Actually, no. Those aren't the right questions at all.
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