Report of Rapes Posed Dilemma for Media in Abduction Case

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-me-media2aug02005054.story

ANTELOPE VALLEY ABDUCTIONS
Report of Rapes Posed Dilemma for Media
By DANA CALVO, TIMES STAFF WRITER


Developing coverage Thursday of the kidnapping of two teenage girls posed a dilemma for media outlets across the country, when reports from the Kern County sheriff expanded the story from one of abduction to include rape.

That information suddenly changed the rules for many outlets, including The Times, that have a policy against publishing the names of sexual assault victims.

The girls' names, ages and photographs--one in her cheerleading uniform and the other dressed for a formal--already had appeared on Web sites and television shows for most of the day. Their names had been mentioned "on every top-of-the-hour broadcast in the country," said Ray Lopez, producer of the talk-radio program "The John & Ken Show" on KFI-AM (640).

"The problem is that they put out their names in the media to help find them. There's no way we could protect the names, even though they might have been rape victims," he said.

National Public Radio has a policy to "err on the side of not using the names of rape victims, particularly underage rape victims," said Bruce Drake, vice president for news. "But this story has developed in a way most don't develop. Their names were out there, we were already on the air naming their names. Then the sheriff goes on national TV and says they were raped. There is no way not to connect the dots."

By late Thursday night, most television networks and affiliates said they had independent confirmation from the Sheriff's Department that the girls had been raped, and they took down the photos and refrained from again naming them.

The developments got bogged down on some Web sites.

NBC, MSNBC and KNBC-TV (Channel 4) ran updated stories on their Web sites with the allegations of rape, but still used large photos at 8:30 p.m., more than 90 minutes after other networks had alerted their television and radio stations to back down.

"Our Web site is an independent company, and usually we're right in sync with them," said Kimberly Godwin, vice president news director at KNBC-TV.

Some media outlets had a more streamlined process for pulling back. ABC News issued a "kill" bulletin three minutes after it learned that authorities said the girls had been raped, prohibiting any outlets and affiliates from using the names or images. CNN did the same thing, although the network couldn't pull pre-taped shows that would re-air overnight with photographs of the girls.

In what can only be described as hedging its bets, once Fox News Channel confirmed the sheriff's comment, they replaced the portraits with "far away" video of the girls' homecoming that showed them from the side, said spokesman Rob Zimmerman.

It is interesting to me (in an analytical way. I'm not judging) that rape victims are the only victims of crime the media will refuse to indentify. There's still just such a stigma connected to rape that even once the cat is out of the bag (these young ladies were named and their photos shown for some time, necessarily to help find them), the media will still try to shove it back in after the fact.

 

I know that to some people, there is some desire to blame the victim of rape, especially in a date rape situation. And I think in the not-too-distant past, that attitude was more prevalent.

But I worry that by taking such special care to keep rape victims names secret, it could perpetuate the stigma that might otherwise be removed. Secrecy can breed opinions that would not otherwise come out.

But I certainly don't know what is or isn't the right way to go. Thankfully, it's not my decision to make because I do think it's a tough situation for a media outlet to be in.

 

Well, Michael Gartner, former president of NBC News, and others in the media have invoked the "blaming the victim" angle when discussing the issue. So, I don't think I would dismiss that angle out of hand.

The thing is, these policies often go back several decades. We can't look at the practice through the spectrum of today and get the answer. We have to take into account the frame of mind of the country when these policies started.

Certainly the media doesn't consider privacy and propriety in other cases. If you were killed in a gay p*rn theater fire, your name gets reported in the newspaper without regard for your privacy or the propriety of doing so. If your dentist intentionally infects you with hepatitis, your name will show up in the paper as a victim.

I'm sure there are many reasons why these practices started and continued, but I would certainly not discount the "blame the victim" issue, either.

On a different tack on the same issue: if we keep the names of rape victims under wraps, should we also keep the names of those accused of rape out of the media, at least until that person is convicted of the crime. There's certainly a stigma attached to being accused of being a rapist. Should privacy and propriety come into play in then?

 

They don't print names of juvenille offenders. Once they are charged as adults (though still not convicted), many media outlets do publish names of the accused even if the accused is under age. That also touches on a legal issue, at least in terms of accused juvenilles. There are some legal restrictions involved in releasing information about juvenille offenders even post-conviction.

But my question was genenrally speaking about the policy of many media outlets to never identify rape victims regardless of their age. Should the same consideration be given to accused offenders until found guilty?

 

To mention others, there's William Kennedy Smith who was found not guilty in a highly public trial. Mark Chmura was also recently found not guilty in a relatively high profile trial.

In those cases, there will always be those who simply think those two "got away with it" (and that may well be the case) rather than believing that they weren't guilty of the crime.

A more clear-cut case, in my opinion, was the case of David Mullane in Houston earlier this year. He was arrested for rape and the HPD released his name to the media. Turns out, DNA evidence proves he didn't do it.

But it's an open question whether these cases show a need to not identify rape suspects. And if you protect the identity of rape suspects, you could make a case against identifying all sorts of people charged, but not convicted, of crimes.

 

Well, I brought up the article in an effort to speak about the broader issue of media outlets tending to not identify rape victims who happen to be above the age of 18. It just so happens that in the case in the article that made it relevant to today, the victims were under age.

There are many, many media outlets who do not publish the names of rape victims when the victim is an adult.

Reporting the names of minors involved in crimes (either as victims or offenders) is a separate issue than the one I was bringing up and was only briefly touched on in the article at all (and as somewhat of a throwaway).

It was an attempt to use the specific of today to discuss a bigger issue involved. I'm sorry that the example that's in the news today didn't fit exactly the broader issue I, and the article, was bringing up. Won't happen again.