This will be distasteful for some, but it nails down the frustration any male would have faced with the shamelessly cynical media manipulation by the White Ribbon Foundation earlier this week.

http://blogs.news.com.au/jackmarxlive/index.php/news/comments/cross_fingers_day/desc/

With gems such as...

'The report itself, while certainly “released”, is not actually “available” at the time of publishing, so I haven’t been able to check its methodology or validate its claims. Nevertheless, its bold assertion that women get what they deserve seems to me ideal fodder for a headline in these attention-deficient times, so I thought I’d run with it regardless, ‘cos that’s what we journalists do sometimes. '

and...

'Thus a reference to a previous report that references a previous study will become a constituent part of a legitimate “new report”, the burdon of methodology removed from the back of the new “researcher”.'

and finally...

'There are those who claim some issues to be so sensitive that one must never joke about them. I’m not sure I agree, but I do believe there are some issues so serious that we should never risk cheapening them with frivolous PR campaigns riding on cosmetic “reports” manufactured from unfathomable facts and figures.'

This is the kind of behaviour, from organisations such as the White Ribbon foundation, that does no service to the community. In fact it's very harmful. Apart from the loss of confidence and distraction from the good work done by such an organisation, it's but one example of the demonisation of men that is commonplace in our society filled with (well intentioned) womens groups 'raising awareness' by crapping over all men. In this case defenseless young men.

Dear US,

Thanks for this thread.

It is very relevant. We've recently heard about quite a few
attacks on young men through the news media.
And you begin to realize that violence is a community
problem, labelling it a gender problem does not help to
reduce it. I fully agree with you that the media does have
a responsibility to report fairly and accurately.

The community should get involved to say 'no' to violence
period. What I would like to see is a "National anti-violence"
campaign.

The media is the media, and I've given up expecting better. I'm more annoyed at the cynical tactics of the White Ribbon Foundation. It was their tactic to put out a 'Press Release', wait for journalists to sensationalise further, and hold back the actual detail until the media had done it's dirty work.

As Marx says,

'...despite it being unlikely that any journalist in the country could possibly have verified a single one of its claims. By Monday evening, the report itself was eventually released to anyone interested in going behind the headlines, but not before those headlines had already done their barking from the morning media.'

Here's proof of their 'raising awareness' slimy PR tactics, tastily put out for the likes of the Murdoch papers...
http://blogs.news.com.au/images/uploads/JMLpossiblyhavereadit.jpg

I also missed another quote I agree with; Marx's analysis of the effect of these kinds of things on men (though obviously women used in his parody) and the anticipation of WRF's defence of their 'research'...

'The idea is not to make the entire female sex feel culpable for one entire day in the public eye, or to infer that only men are deserving of protection from nagging - these are but necessary by-products of a campaign whose purpose is to “raise awareness”, which can only be a good thing'

i.e. The ends justifies the means for this organisation, and being complicit in headlines such as 'It's ok to hit girls, rape flirts' seems fine and dandy. It's a very unfair accusation levelled at the young men of today, especially when , ...

'the document supporting White Ribbon Day, was itself such a report - not a fresh “survey” at all, as was suggested by the media alarm, but merely an essay in which the author referenced work compiled by others, some of which dated back to the early 90s, those reports themselves being “studies” of other reports and trends from even earlier times, many of the “children” referred to in the “new” data now probably having children themselves, the attitudes attributed to the youth of today having been extracted long ago.'