Quote From: musicmanFirst of all, i'm neither supporting nor witch hunting the show in question. But I will play devils advocate here. I'm guessing that no one here has ever had rough times, A possible medical condition, Or even a loss of control over a given situation. Why would they go on the show one would ask? To get help that could not be found else where? To be publicly ridiculed? To lose all family and friends that they may of had? Who knows what they are going through at this time. But you DO need to ask your self is what did Dr. Phil do for them? Is the problem being fixed? Are the kids ok now? Yes it is a bad situation, but is it being fixed? Are you all of such little faith that you think he did this for ratings? Come on lets get real here this is not the springer show. That is a real problem with real people and children who obviously needed help and went there to get it. And they will, i'm sure of that. But if it make you all feel better about yourselves, please feel free to be judgemental, ridicule, persicute and even scorn those you don't know to make yourselves feel better. I'm real sure that is the way we all should live our perfect lives.
If ratings is what it takes to get the issue of child abuse brought to light, I say go after ratings, but I don’t believe the Dr. Phil show seeks to entertain to the extent they seek to educate…
The following is an excerpt from http://www.preventchildabuse.org/learn_more/research_docs/reframing%20revised.pdf
And although child abuse and neglect is killing nearly 1,000 children every year and is harming millions of others, the issue has never been successfully raised to the level of public policy priority. Funding of both research and prevention programs has been difficult to obtain (and retain) in even the most robust economic periods, undoubtedly due at least in part to the lack of public understanding on the issue and the perceived importance of prevention.
The overwhelming imbalance between media coverage of the negative aspects of the child abuse and neglect story compared to its coverage of potential solutions to the problem is likely both a reflection of, and part of the reason for, the general public’s sense of hopelessness on the issue. A recent analysis by Prevent Child Abuse
America
, in fact, shows that national television and radio news broadcasts during the period 1993 to mid-2002 carried 664 stories on the subject of child abductions and 282 on child molestation while carrying only four stories on “positive parenting” and 67 on child abuse prevention during this same period of time.3
The Dr. Phil show doesn’t just “cover” a story of child abuse and present in to us in all it’s ugliness for shock value…he shows us what it looks like…says that it is wrong…why it is wrong…what needs to be done about it…and he goes on step further…he sees to it that it is done. Maybe that’s what we as a society need…to have it spelled out for us…this is not acceptable and this is what you need to do about it. Dr. Phil shows us it is not hopeless...and that we have the power to change it.
