If you feel that a television program has not handled the issue in a responsible manner, you may wish to write a letter to the network's programming department. Thirty percent of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year. But I think that you owe your audience a truthful representation of a potentially life-threatening situation. By including the storyline of domestic abuse in your show and then dealing with it in an irresponsible way, you missed an important opportunity to provide battered women and all your viewers with useful information on domestic violence and how to prevent it. You can also write to networks when you feel they have dealt with the subject in a particularly good way.
Networks create their programming with the goal of pleasing their viewers.
Giving them positive reinforcement when they do so will encourage them to continue broadcasting shows that depict domestic violence in a way that is part of the solution, not part of the problem. View a list of the mail and Internet addresses of the four major television networks. Learn about other ways to improve media coverage on domestic violence, whether it is an article in the newspaper or coverage of an incident on your local news. View a list of books and films on video that deal with domestic violence.