"The press has been quiet on the failure of the 112th Congress of the United States to renew the Violence Against Women Act. The slender coverage has been overwhelmed by talk of the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling.

The reasoning is simple: the press doesn’t care.

They’re not maliciously apathetic, they just know the failure is temporary. VAWA will be passed, in one form or another, in the new 113th Congress. No one really believes that the Native American, immigrant, and LGBT provisions of VAWA—such a small sliver of an enormous package—will kill the bill that has revolutionized how we talk about domestic violence in America.

So we’re left with the carefully orchestrated death-throws of the 112th Republican majority, their final sound-and-fury monologue, the last act on the Congressional floor. The audience is only half paying attention; they’re tired, they’re shuffling to gather their belongings, their minds already trying to remember where they parked the car."

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Haley B. Elkins: The Press's Silence on VAWA Is Deafening (Indian Country Today 1/24)