DADvocate

Wendy McElroy at Ifeminists writes today about PBS' film "Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories." The film "is accused of being anti-father, factually inaccurate and politically motivated."

McElroy states:

On Dec. 2, PBS' own internal ombudsman offered a separate analysis, "I thought this particular program had almost no balance...turning it...into more of an advocacy, or point-of-view, presentation."

Here is the entire sentence in case you think it has been distorted, "But I thought this particular program had almost no balance, and went too far, turning it, at least in my mind, into more of an advocacy, or point-of-view, presentation."

Given PBS' reputation for left-leaning, a statement like this from an internal source is damning.

More from McElroy's column:

For example, Sadia Loeliger is featured as a heroic mom and survivor of domestic violence. But the extensive court documents, findings and reports reveal Loeliger to be guilty of multiple acts of child abuse which led to her losing custody of two daughters.

Police documents reveal she was arrested and jailed for felony domestic violence. No similar documents exist regarding the accused father.

Hmmm.

The documentary also brought these often used, grossly misleading statistics:

They found that "fathers who actively seek custody [8.75 percent of fathers] obtain either primary or joint physical custody over 70 percent of the time."

Cathy Young shows the truth regarding these statistics here.

But the 70 percent figure was not limited to domestic violence cases. It is also highly misleading, since it doesn't separate custody disputes from cases in which the father gets custody by mutual consent. In contested custody cases, mothers are two to four times more likely to prevail.
My emphasis.

McElroy also stated:

Bode wondered whether PBS had been used as "the launching pad for a very partisan effort to drive public policy and law." If so, the documentary violates PBS' mission statement to be non-partisan and "provide multiple viewpoints."

Despite the likelyhood of violation of PBS' mission statement "According to PBS statistics, the program has been aired by 235 stations, about 69% of all PBS stations, some 387 times between its Oct. 20 debut and Nov. 20."

And they wonder why so many attack and criticize PBS.