Tag: public awareness

News you can relate to

Some news stories that caught our eye this week:

I often wish for public awareness ads that focus on the accountability of perpetrators of violence rather than highlighting the plight of victims. A powerful new ad campaign in Michigan is doing just that.

How do you invent the Pill in a time where contraception was still illegal in many states? You lie and sneak around.

This week was the birthday of Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights activist who was severely beaten for trying to register to vote and went on to become the first African American to serve as an official delegate at a national-party convention. She famously said: “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Wiki-what-the-hell?

My little friend Jacob hopped into my car the day after Halloween, still wearing his bat costume, and asked: “What’s the biggest bat?” It just so happens that my next door neighbor Greg Falxa is a bat researcher. After he told us about the Flying Fox, Jacob still wanted more details. Where did we turn? Wikipedia, of course. If you dare, check it out. No worries, they eat fruit.

I printed out a picture for Jacob and thought idly about clicking on the Wiki definition of domestic violence, which I do periodically to torture myself. This time, sitting atop the article, was a box with an orange exclamation point saying “This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject.”

I’ll say!

I then unearthed the frightening fact that this Wiki article got (hold onto your hats) 94,632 hits during the 31 days of October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I have been working for 30 years to educate the public about domestic violence and  have not come within a light year of talking to that many people. How do your efforts at public awareness match up against the near 95,000 high school and college students and miscellaneous others being spoon fed this out-of-date and unintelligible misinformation about domestic violence?

This is a call to researchers and others with a talent for accurate and engaging prose. Put your money where your brains are. Make it your mission to upgrade the article to be at least as interesting and accurate as the article on bats!

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