Last month a number of people made complaints to the BBC about their shocking coverage of the issue of domestic violence on their flagship Newsnight programme.

The programme featured interviews with various male perpetrators of domestic violence, only ever made reference to females as victims and even the supposedly impartial presenter referred to the perpetrators of dv as "these men".

The second half of the feature contained a "debate" between a representative of Women's Aid (who kick out boys from their shelters on their 13th birthday), and "Respect" a charity re-educating perpetrators of domestic violence (unless they're female of course) and they couldn't' rally have found any two people who's opinions were more closely matched if they tried.

You can watch the programme here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_arobNtUyU

A new video by MrShadowfax42 discussing the saga is also worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeQg0UesvOo

Justice for men and Boys produced the most thorough complaint, including a detailed report demonstrating how the programme was in breach of more than 50 of the BBC's own guidelines: http://j4mb.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/our-first-official-complaint-to-the-bbc-the-newsnight-piece-on-domestic-abuseviolence-7-january-2014/

Unfortunately, the compliant has been rejected with a quite pathetic response. J4M&B and the other complainants do still have the opportunity to escalate this matter and if others were to take issue with the pathetic attitude of the BBC thus far it would surely help to apply some pressure and force them to start taking their responsibilities seriously.

How to complain

You can submit a complaint via this page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complain-online/ or phone them on 03700 100 222. Technically the deadline has expired, though perhaps you can be complain about their response to the concerns of others?

If you've complained already (before Feb 5th) and had a reply rejecting your concerns, then you need to resubmit the complaint, explaining why their response is wrong and therefore have it escalated up to the next level. This will possibly happen need to happen several times over as the complain goes up through each level (unless the BBC actually do the decent thing and address our concerns, admit fault and apologise).

Best option?

A new unexplored option for complaints is "Newswatch". This is a BBC programme that examines the organisation's coverage of the news. I expect this is now the best option for new complainants, and there's a decent chance they'd invite Mike or someone form the Mankind Initiative onto eh show to discuss the issue, either way they'd at least end up discussing the complaint on air.

Contact them on [email protected] Phone: 0370 010 6676,

Update - J4M&B's escalated complaint is here: http://j4mb.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/our-appeal-to-the-bbc-concerning-their-handling-of-our-recent-complaints-about-newsnight/

Update 2 There's now a petition about this issue: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-british-broadcasting-corporation-include-statistics-of-male-domestic-abuse-victims-include-a-fair-representation-of-male-victims-of-domestic-violence-in-documentaries-news-programs-features-on-the-subject-of-domestic-abuse