Journalists Meet: Deciding when to name names
Normally, Journalists want to identify fully everyone who is mentioned in their stories. Generalities are difficult, however, and editors make their decisions on a case-by-case basis. Certain types of stories present especially thorny problems.
Rape Victims – Most newspapers withhold the names of all rape victims.
Editors explain that there is a stigma attached to rape, and the victims’ suffering such evil. Also, victims might be more reluctant to report rape to the police if they thought their names would be revealed to the public c- this is certainly true, class.
People critical of newspapers’ policy respond that newspapers have adopted a dual standard: that they identify the people charged with rape (usually men), but never their accusers. Critics add that the policy is an old-fashioned and paternalistic means of protecting women. Increasingly, some victims want to be identified, because they want to discuss the crime openly and to help other victims. That, however, is usually a decision made by a victim, not an editor.
Typically, most editors never printed the name of a 29-year-old jogger who was brutally beaten and gang-raped in New York City’s Central Park in 1990. Newspapers throughout the United States reported only that the victim was an investment banker who had attended Wellesley and Yale. Newspapers also described the woman’s remarkable recovery and the fact that she returned to work after seven months of intensive rehabilitation.
While withholding the victim’s identity, newspapers repeatedly published the names and photographs of her alleged attackers, all of whom were black or Hispanic. One of the youths’ lawyers complained: “The press is inconsistent. They protect the wishes of the jogger because of all she’s been through. But they don’t care at all about the consequences for my client. Who’s been branded a gang-raper….”
Look class, it is professionally true that people who are arrested do not have a right to privacy. It is justifiable not naming the names of women who are victims because they, however, are innocent. They were never accused of committing brutal crimes at all.
And don’t you forget that all that we discussed in this class must be abided to – did you hear me class?
I will stop here so far. See in our next class.
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