This is something I would normally post to bulletins, but the gravity of the matter is significant enough that I want it to run for the weekend front and center.
Following the lead of Mike Buchanan, a Men’s Human Rights Activist from the UK, who regularly comments here and periodically contributes articles, we have decided to engage the legal departments of and possibly litigate against elements in the mainstream media that have intentionally misrepresented the views on this website, and the nature of the Men’s Human Rights Movement.
Naturally, one of the first entities that came to mind with this approach was ABC News 20/20, who published an online article by Alyssa Pry and Alexa Valiente that egregiously and I think maliciously misrepresented the content of this site as well as the intent of our mission here.
To wit, they took an article I penned three years ago condemning the advocacy of violence and asserting that commenters violating our antiviolence position would be banned after their comments were stricken and claimed that comments like these are so commonplace that visitors to the site feel free to post them.
I wrote the legal department of ABC News and informed them of my concerns about this kind of journalism and of our intent to have the matter corrected.
To the credit of the ABC News Legal Department, sufficient action has been taken to address the open act of libel on the part of Pry and Valiente. The following statement by the editor has been added as an addendum to the article itself.
Editor’s Note: ABC News wants to clarify that the two passages quoted in the second paragraph of this story, which were originally part of a comment posted several years ago by a user on the “A Voice for Men” website, were removed by Mr. Elam shortly after they were posted and that he posted a warning to contributors that such comments “would not be tolerated” on the website. Mr. Elam, who contacted ABC News to point this out, also said in his message that “as our five year online history reflects, such comments are exceptionally rare, but when they do occur they are treated with zero tolerance.” The editorial and comment policy of the website states that “A Voice for Men” is “anti-violent” and that it “supports only peaceful change on all levels of human interaction; social, political and otherwise.”
While ABC News is still remiss, in my opinion, by calling this a “clarification” rather than what it actually is, a retraction of the bald-faced lies from the ABC News department, I still appreciate the fact that the retraction is now a part of the public record.
That leaves Maclean’s Magazine and The Week, both of whom have printed malicious lies about A Voice for Men and whose legal departments I have contacted, but who have not yet responded. Should they continue to ignore AVFM demands that they retract their libelous works, we will look into whatever legal options are viable for us to pursue.
In the meantime, and with thanks to Mike Buchanan for his sterling example, I want to take a moment to enjoy the fact that the rule of law still occasionally affords power to the little guy against the powers that be.
And I want to issue a notice to the mainstream media. Printing lies about AVFM will no longer be tolerated or handled with pleas to the decency of publishers who don’t have any. We don’t intend to take this crap anymore.
