Only 5% of TV ads in the UK employ ethnic minorities

I imagine it’s somewhat similar in the US. I’m waiting for ads to feature males (white or ethnic) in cleaning commercials. I’ve only seen 2. I especially dislike the ads that feature a male announcer sounding like an authority on a product and the female demonstrating it – there’s a vacuum cleaner with a new technology (a ball that makes the vacuum turn better) that does this. grrrr.

Only 5% of TV ads feature ethnic minorities

Actors from black, Asian or other ethnic minority groups appeared in only 5% of the almost 35,000 TV ads screened in the UK last year, according to a report.

 The report by Clearcast, the body that vets all commercials before they are broadcast, found that TV advertising is “drastically under-representing” the ethnic minority groups. Black, Asian and those of other ethnic minorities account for about 13% of the UK population.

 Clearcast’s report, which marks the first in-depth look at the racial makeup of UK television advertising, found that of the total of 34,499 commercials given the green light last year just 1,845, or 5.3%, used actors from a non-white background.

Men dominate newspaper journalism in the UK

The link below will take you to the link to the study…

Men still dominate national newspaper journalism

The study found that 74% of news journalists on the nationals are men and that men also dominate political and business journalism. Somewhat less surprisingly, just 3% of sports journalists are women

Among other eye-opening findings are that The Independent had the lowest proportion of female staff. Just 25% of its editorial team are women. The Sun the Daily Telegraph were little different, with just 26% of female staff.

At the other end of the scale, the papers with the highest proportion of women journalists were The Observer and the Daily Mail, both with 36% of women, closely followed by the Daily Express with 35%.

Male journalists also people areas that researchers regard as “traditional subjects that women might have been expected to dominate”. So 49% of lifestyle reporters are men and 70% of arts reporters are also male.

Family court chaos: abuse, audits and “alienation”

Here are several pieces on the horrors of family court, here and abroad.

First research study on how local authorities work with domestically abusive fathers  from the Charity Family Rights Group in the UK. The report is available from this site, but there is a charge. Here’s a link to the Baby P case they reference – Warning – there’s a graphic description of the abuse this infant experienced. This article mentions there’s been 30 other similar cases recently (sigh) : Baby P: Born into a nightmare of abuse, violence and despair, he never stood a chance

Excerpt from “First research study…”:

The audit of the 70 case files in three authorities found that: 

The majority but not all perpetrators of domestic abuse were birth fathers

• In 57 cases the perpetrator of the domestic abuse was the birth father and in 12 cases the mother’s partner. 

 The severity of the abuse was stark

• In 41% of the cases the adult victim had been pregnant at the time of being abused.
• In at least 37% of the cases there had been more than six separate reported incidents of domestic violence.

 A great many of the children were in contact with their fathers ·   Only 12% of perpetrators were noted on the files as having definitely lost contact as a result of the domestic violence.   

But

Ø     In only 31 cases (44%) was the phone number of the birth father on the files;

Ø    There was a lack of assessment and information about the parenting capacity of 61% of these fathers;

Ø    In the sample, 48 core assessments were undertaken (i.e. to assess the level of the child’s need/or to assess risk when there were child protection concerns)  yet the father was not seen or contacted by phone in 32% (15) of these cases ; 

Ø    The offer of attending a domestic violence perpetrator programme was made to only 14 of the 53 perpetrators. 

Speaking of audits, here are some press pieces from the audit of Marin County family court:

Marin Voice:  Audit unveils court problems

Marin court right to implement audit advice

And, lastly, I want to mention that the Huffington Post has been running posts on parental alienation. Cathy Meyer wrote an article that bashed the National Organization of Women (NOW). I suppose the rookie didn’t want to take on all the other organizations that discredit parental alienation:

The American Bar Association, American Prosecutors Research Institute, National District Attorneys Association, and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges…

The National District Attorneys Association says on their Web site, “PAS is an unproven theory that can threaten the integrity of the criminal justice system and the safety of abused children.”

Meyer admits in the comment section that she doesn’t know much about domestic violence but suspects it’s not very common. You’d think she’d visit at least one domestic violence site before writing about PAS.  

I give up on contacting the Huffpo – we sent them a sign on letter with over 2o signatories of individuals(lawyers, writers, advocates) and organizations involved in domestic violence and child abuse. They didn’t respond. I then sent them “Case #1” (Katie Tagle, who the judge claimed denied access to the father – the father who ended up killing their 9-month-old son). So they let me submit an article on PAS (posted on my blog below) – a small consolation, esp considering they then ran the Meyer piece afterwards. It was so poorly researched – She read a book on PAS (according to a comment she wrote on the Internet) and now *poof* she’s an expert. Meanwhile, abusers are getting off the hook with PAS, the abuse excuse.

Huffington Post really needs to get some better writers  – ones able to do a little research – they owe that much to their readers.

Everything’s fine

Courts are making it harder for women to make allegations of abuse (detering reporting is the wrong way to go), move out of the area after divorce (only with their permission), and, of course, from talking negatively about an ex (because all parents are perfect??) Here’s news from the UK about censorship, I mean, describing an ex as an “ogre:”

High court judge warns parents not to describe ex-partners as ‘ogres’

I don’t condone bad-mouthing a parent, but neither do I believe courts should get involved with freedom of speech or being able to teach a child about negative behavior. I had a housemate a few years ago. Her ex was involved with the fathers rights movement. Regardless of how he treated their child (lack of affection & love), she was left voiceless to complain – her ex threatened to use parental alienation syndrome (a bogus claim) against her. For courts to silence individuals, especially when it can help children understand negative parental behavior, is absurd.