Home violence awareness urged

Experts on preventing domestic violence are aiming their message at a new audience — journalism students — in hopes that future media representatives will be better equipped to tackle assignments on this topic once they leave school.

For the past four years, the Utah Domestic Violence Council has been sending at least two panelists, sometimes three, to various colleges and universities to address journalism students.

The effort was spearheaded by Cathy Ferrand Bullock, an associate professor of journalism and communications at Utah State University and head of the UDVC public education committee.

She began offering this panel presentation, which includes a question and answer period, in her Introduction to Mass Communications class. Generally, the panel involves a survivor of domestic violence and someone from a battered women's shelter. Sometimes a third speaker is included.

"They discuss what is domestic violence, what its impact is, what the warning signs are," Bullock said.

This class segment also provides students with ideas of where to turn to get information and interviews in general about domestic violence if they want to expand a short crime story into a larger, more in-depth piece.

Bullock then divides her class into small groups, gives students a press release about a domestic violence related matter and has them map out how they would cover it. Later, she will post actual coverage by a newspaper in the classroom, and students can compare what they would have written versus what appeared in print.

This effort has been presented to some journalism students at Brigham Young University, the University of Utah and Utah Valley University, and to a small group of reporters at the Salt Lake Tribune.

Bullock and others on the UDVC public education committee hope to expand this effort in the future to reach more students.

"We try to get them thinking about this issue," she said. "If this kind of story comes up (once they are working in mass communications), maybe they will have a better idea of how to cover it."

The information also is valuable on a personal level, and Bullock has had private conversations with either a student in an abusive relationship or a friend of someone in that situation. She asks if she can get help for the abused student without forcing the issue.

"I never push anybody. We also need to respect that it is their life and their choice. If they say, 'no,' I give them the phone number (for assistance). If I make the call (with the student's permission), I put them on the phone."

Bullock said her classes have been very receptive to including this as part of the overall course and they often come up with creative ways to raise public awareness about domestic violence.