PBS Ignored Facts, Father's Request in Anti-Fatherhood Documentary, Says Columnist
by Jim Brown
November 14, 2005
(AgapePress) - - The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is being accused of portraying a known child abuser as a heroic mom. That has one national radio host comparing the situation to the "Rathergate" scandal at CBS News. The controversial PBS film Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories features mothers who have purportedly lost custody of their children in divorce to physically abusive husbands. However, it has been revealed that one of the moms featured in the film has a rap sheet for child abuse.
Los Angeles-based newspaper columnist Glenn Sacks has uncovered documents showing PBS chose to ignore the fact that, in 1998, a California court found Sadia Loeliger guilty of eight counts of child abuse. In Breaking the Silence, she is portrayed as the victim of anti-mother bias in family courts. According to Sacks, PBS ignored facts available about the mom and her 16-year-old daughter, as well as a request from the girl's father she not be included in the film.
"The father in the case, Dr. Scott Loeliger, had been writing [to PBS] starting back in April, telling them that the mother had this history of abuse, offering to show them the documents, and asking that his daughter not be made a part of this film," Sacks explains.
"They basically ignored him for six months and went ahead and put the mother in [the film] anyway. And now it looks like they're going to be facing a libel lawsuit over it."
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which passes funds to public broadcasters, receives hundreds of millions of dollars a year in federal funding. Sacks believes Breaking the Silence is an example of why PBS should lose government funding.
"PBS's mission statement says very clearly that they're supposed to consider all views and provide balance -- and Breaking the Silence is a horrendously skewed film," says the columnist. "I mean, there's no effort whatsoever to provide any kind of balance."
He claims PBS, in this case, "cherry-picked a very small number of alleged cases where a mother had been mistreated by the family courts -- and then they pretended that this is some kind of an epidemic."
PBS -- which says the film and its content are under review -- has not issued a retraction, but continues to receive thousands of e-mails and phone calls protesting the program. It aired on many PBS affiliates in late October.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
