By Stephen C. Schultz
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing ~ Edmund Burke
I don’t frequent bars very often…mainly because I don’t
drink. However, last week was an exception. Not the drinking part, but the
being in a bar part. Corned beef sliders, a coke and the World Series baseball
game. It doesn’t get much better than that!
The guy sitting next to me on my left started a conversation
with me about his car and how upset he was that someone backed into him and
scraped the bumper. He then started a dialogue about the quality of cars now as
opposed to thirty years ago. The conversation was simply a one way conversation
with rants about insurance, auto body repair shops and his disappointment that
he wasn’t headed to Hawaii this year…since every year at this time he is in
Hawaii. I kept trying to turn back to the gentleman on my right, since he was
the reason I was there in the first place.
I was hosting a
producer, Dan Frankenberg, from Special
Edition Films Limited based in London. They contacted me a couple of months
ago and are interested in doing a piece on teens who struggle with sexual
addiction, sexual trauma and sexual abuse that has been exacerbated by the use
of pornography. Oxbow Academy is one of
a handful of treatment programs for teens that deal with these concerns; and
probably the only one that works exclusively with privately placed students. 
I brought Dan to one of the Family Seminars that is held
every three months for the parents. The parents fly in from around the world to
spend three days involved in a workshop learning environment. There are
educational presentations by clinicians, therapeutic support groups run and
hosted by alumni parents and therapists as well as equine family therapy.
Parents are also able to spend much needed time with their sons over the
weekend.
Dan was able to be introduced to the parents and he also sat
in on a parent support group, observed equine therapy sessions and learned
about Sand Tray Therapy. It was quite an emotional time and Dan mentioned,
“I wasn’t quite prepared to hear and observe the things I
did.”
There were some parents who approached Dan and offered to
share their very personal and painful journey. They mentioned how they felt
very alone helping their sons deal with sexual concerns. Some parents mentioned
they actually wished their sons had a drug or alcohol problem, because then
they at least had community resources and support. People are generally
understanding of those issues, but sexual issues are a whole different reality.
There were also some parents who approached Dan and shared their
skepticism of his intentions and of the media in general. They shared the fact
that these issues of pornography had brought pain and suffering to their sons
as well as their families. They had lost time, money and memories by having
their sons placed in a residential treatment center. They were angry and hurt that
they had to go through this experience in the first place. They see the media
as being one of the major culprits in their pain and suffering as a family and
do not trust the media.
These parents make a good point. The media in general
thrives on sex because “Sex sells”. When you view some of the so called “news”
programs that are simply exposes’ and Tabloid Journalism produced simply for
ratings, it’s difficult to disagree.
There is a saying in the news business that;
“Stories can be fair and stories can be accurate. Sometimes
they are fair but not accurate. Sometimes they are accurate but not fair.
Sometimes they are neither fair nor accurate.”
I have experienced the manipulation of words to exploit a
story line first hand. You can read an article here written in a way where some of my quotes are made up. Then there are actual quotes that are shared out of context. Pictures were pulled off the website and treated as though we had sent them. There is also
language and labels used by the writer that I would never use. Then, once the article was published online, other media outlets simply copied much of the content, changed some words and
again made up quotes. I was actually interviewed by a single journalist and there were
five different articles published online by organizations that never spoke to
me, yet had quotes by me.
I will end this post with a number of questions. I’m not
sure I have the answers.
“Is it worth the risk of unfair media exposure to get the
message out that porn is harmful?”
“Is it worth having parents share their stories when they
could be made fun of or denigrated in some way?”“Is it worth having the students read mocking comments posted about the program online?”
“Is it worth sharing the stories so a family who see’s it
can know they are not alone and that there is help?”
“How do you share such emotional and sensitive topics
without running the risk of mockery?”
I am interested in your thoughts! So, now we’re back to the title of this blog post;
“Is the news media trustworthy?”
"Trust"
Firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing.
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