More on the Journalist Backlash...

Latest comments on Caroline Overingtons Article:

"And of course these bitches refuse to express milk during the week to be frozen so that the father can feed the baby it's own mothers breast milk for the week the child is with him...Women like overington are deliberately pushing this bullshit out there and they expect that the public are too dumb to realise the above facts."  Peter, Fathers4Equality

"Naturally these breastfeeding stories are Caroline's continued attempts at hyperbole". Jason, Fathers4Equality

 Caroline Overington, a brave journalist submitted several articles that were against the tide of the usual fathers rights rhetoric and provided coverage on how shared parenting was harmful to children and women.  Fathers Rights groups retaliated with a denigration campaign against her and sent out an alert that reached international groups in an attempt to attack her career.  Our team has been infiltrating these groups for quite some time and were able to report on the emails that were sent out to the Australian Press Council.  To their credit, they have complained to the F4E group for attracting over 60 submissions against her.  

This is not the first time that professionals have been attacked by these groups for speaking out against these groups.  In fact this type of behavior was consistent throughout the period when the shared parenting bill was passed.  The first stunt of the fathers rights movement in Australia began with the black shirts.  

Last week the law caught up with John Abbott. The leader of the Blackshirts fathers' group was found guilty in the County Court of stalking, and given a four-month suspended jail sentence. It came two years after Abbott, 58, shocked the city by leading posses of masked men to protest outside the homes of often terrified women. 

Smiling as he walked from the court, the most extreme figure in the men's movement vowed to continue his vigilante action, and to launch a new political party. Despite looming prison time if he breaks the law in the next 18 months, Abbott said: "I'm not deterred in the least. It only strengthens my resolve." 

The new party, Southern Cross, will, he says, champion men's rights and stand candidates at future federal elections. As for the demonstrations, they will go on. Abbott still has the rack of black shirts he used to evoke fear, and will employ them to shame the women he blames for marriage break-ups.  

 

More at the dads on air website

Subsequently, laws under the guise of a shared parenting bill were introduced in parliament by mens advocates that barely concealed the same ideals as Mr Abbott.  It was reported in another news report that Mr Abbott had a registry of 300 members.  Links between the mens movements today and those involved in the black shirts are yet to be brought forward.  There is no denial that the shared parenting bill is just a new marriage contract and that the black shirts were gratified for their bullying tactics.  

Our team at Anonymums would like to challenge the Australian government to see these groups for what they truly are:

ter⋅ror⋅ism

  [ter-uh-riz-uhm]  Show IPA

–noun

1.	the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.

2.	the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

3.	a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government. Find out more on how we have been able to define these groups as such here. Reporter is Being 'Vilified' for Coverage of Family Law

Letters Blog | June 10, 2009 | 11 Comments

MEN'S groups are urging people to lodge complaints with the Press Council against Caroline Overington for her coverage of issues relating to shared parenting in Family Court legislation. The reality is that some Family Court judges have made decisions that could not possibly be in any child's "best interests". Overington is to be congratulated for having the courage to expose what has been happening ("Lives torn asunder", Features, 9/6; "Court allows mums to take kids overseas", 9/6). 

For far too long the media has been too afraid of Section 121 of the Family Law Act to investigate and disclose some of the court's bizarre decisons. For example, a mother secretly imprisoned for refusing to hand over her child to the father who broke into their home, bashed and raped her in the presence of children; a child placed with a father who had not disclosed HIV/AIDS to the mother and had two convictions for child sex offences and one for violence; a boy removed against his wishes from his grandparents and his father to live far away with his nightclub stripper mother, whose partner had just been released from jail for downloading a record number of child-porn images; and children removed from fathers to live with drug-addicted mothers and their sexual-abuser boyfriends.

This is not, and should not be, a gender issue. Child advocates, both women and men, are demanding that children's safety should take precedence in the Family Court. It's sad that one of the few journalists prepared to expose child protection and family law issues is being vilified by men using other branches of the media.

Freda Briggs 
Adelaide, SA

REGARDING Caroline Overington's recent coverage of the shared parenting laws, it's refreshing to see views other than those of the fathers being aired. For 15 years it seems that fathers' groups have been able to set the agenda, claiming most allegations of abuse against fathers are false without supporting evidence, when there is much research showing that more than 90 per cent of allegations of abuse in custody cases are true.

These groups also claimed five fathers a day committed suicide because they lost access to their children after divorce. They have not produced any credible evidence of this and yet the shared parenting laws were introduced because of their claims.

Children are suffering. The best interests of children are not being served. While fathers continue to fight for their rights, the rights of children are being trampled.

I applaud Overington's attempts to balance this and wish more journalists would consult experts and research in their reporting, as she is doing.

Barbara Biggs 
Convenor, Safer Family Law Campaign 
Greenwich, Vic