The story that went unreported regarding Obama’s Father’s Day speech

This is a story about the media.

Last Sunday Barack Obama gave a speech on how a father’s absence is tearing apart the black community and America at large. I predict that if Obama is elected to the presidency, it will become a mildly famous speech. It is an unusual speech in that it was covered in great detail, in newspapers across the county, without the usual focus on the horserace. Perhaps, for that, the media is to be commended. But ask yourself this, if Senator McCain gave a major speech on protecting the rights of the unborn right up to conception, wouldn’t there be pro-choice columns all over America was well as “reaction” quotes from NOW or Planned Parenthood? If Barack Obama gave a speech about protecting the right for partial birth abortions because they are a medical necessity, wouldn’t there be pro-life columns popping up like dandelions? Wouldn’t Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition, and the countless pro-life groups be contacted for the other side?

How could a major presidential candidate that stands a very good chance of winning make a speech on the absence of father’s on Father’s Day and not a single father’s rights group be contacted? I cannot blame any single newspaper or television station since they virtually all universally did so. This is not a column on the Obama speech from the father’s rights angle (I already wrote that), but rather a story on the lack of columns on the Obama speech from the father’s rights angle

My piece was published in Men’s News Daily. While I have had a number of columns that made the daily newspapers, that one did not. As a movement, father’s rights activists have gained tremendous strides over the past decade in terms of legitimacy. We now have many columnist, Glenn Sacks, Phyllis Schlafly, Kathleen Parker, and Cathy Young that regularly appear in daily newspaper across the country, with Sacks writing predominantly about father’s issues. Marc Rudov regularly appears on Fox Television and has a provocative Internet radio show. I would have thought columnist like this would have their pieces blossoming all over the country’s daily newspapers, magazines, and national and local television. Rudov’s piece ran in Men’s News Daily but appeared in no daily newspapers that I am aware of. Kathleen Parker did appear in Baltimore Sun and Pittsburgh Tribune. Even Parker, who is very sympathetic to fathers, did not mention the trouble fathers were having in courts being with their children, and instead focused on child support and domestic violence issues. The Boston Globe ran a piece, but it was more about expanding economic opportunities for black fathers with the usual laundry list of economic items—educational opportunities, helping ex cons get jobs . . . In other words, to help make black men pay black women child support. Trey Ellis wrote a piece that appeared in the Huffington Post, that did mention family courts.

By in large however, the father’s right movement was ignored by the major media in the thousands of electronic and print pieces all over the country. The obvious follow-up on a story about fatherhood absence by a major candidate for office is naturally a story about government imposed fatherhood absence over which the candidate actually has control.

 

There are many natural speakers across our movement. There are local contacts in almost every state, if not every state. We have repeatedly tried to get in the Rolodexes of every major media outlet, but the phone calls did not come. Today, as this piece is being written, “Obama” and “Father’s Day” produces 1,320 Google hits in the “News” search engine. It made all the major networks and virtually ever daily newspaper. Add the words “shared parenting” to “Obama” and “Father’s Day” and that number goes down to zero. You reach a similar result by adding to the term “father’s rights” to “Obama” and “Father’s Day.” Because not every online story is picked up by Google news, it not a perfect barometer of what the press covered—but it is a good one. As someone that has appeared in a number of daily newspaper, we are always try to find a local angle rather than write a generic father’s rights piece. Obama’s speech seemed like it was the obvious and natural launch point of a discussion about fatherlessness—it was not to be.

Part of the creation of Fathers4Justice and the crazy (crazy in a funny way) stunts that they do was because conventional means of getting in the news was just not happening. Is it any wonder that men stand on the precipice of an edge at Buckingham Palace in a Batman suit, climb Stonehenge dressed as Fred Flintstone, or sit on the top of a bridge dressed as Spider Man when they cannot get in the media the normal and usual way? In a 2004 public policy question, 87% of Massachusetts residents said they support shared parenting—it has the support, almost universal support, of the psychological community. Given the overwhelming popular support, support in the psychological community, and the fact that divorce and family breakup affects the lives of so many, why was it impossible to get any air time?

 

Rinaldo Del Gallo, III

The author is spokesperson of the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition and practicing family law attorney. His columns can be read at that website.