Ray Rice’s case can be considered to be an ethical dilemma. Ray Rice was released by the Ravens and suspended from the NFL after a video surfaced of him and his then finance in a violent fight in an elevator. The news sources and media definitely influenced the case. It all started on February 15 when news broke that Rice had been arrested, charged and released from jail on simple assault charges, along with his fiancé. The head of the Ravens organization came to Rice’s defense saying, “the two people obviously have a couple issues hat they have to work through, and they’re both committed to doing that. They’re getting a lot of counseling and those kinds of things (Bein, L).” On February 22 the first of two videos was released. In this first video it shows Rice dragging his fiancé out of an elevator. He is then indicted on aggravated assault charges. Nothing really happened to Rice until the second video hit the media. It went viral on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, new sites, etc. The NFL lied at the beginning of the case and defended Peterson, they also said that they didn’t see the video but once the second video was released they were held accountable, especially by the people that saw it. The second video showed Rice punching his fiancé in the face and dragging her limp body out of the elevator. People that saw this video went crazy. There were tweets, posts, and newspaper headlines portraying him as a monster. The media targeted him and blew it out of proportion.
Ray Rice of course isn’t the only person to get caught up in a violent act. Another example is the Adrian Peterson child abuse case. He got charged reckless or negligent injury to a child (BBC). Local media said the “whooping” which is how Peterson referred to the incident in a police interview, resulted in cutes and bruises to the little boy’s back, buttocks, legs and scrotum (BBC). Peterson was suspended for the rest of the season. The Vikings initially were going to allow him to play after he was indicted but they reversed that course after a loud public backlash (Zinser, L.)
These two cases show just how much power newspapers, media and journalists have. If the videos of Ray Rice hadn’t been released then he might have gotten away with the abuse of his wife and if it weren’t for the people that saw the trial and the decision to let Peterson play after he would have gotten away with child abuse. I do agree that both Rice and Peterson should be charged but I don’t agree with how the media portrayed them. The media made the men look like monsters. Both cases were not private issues because they were done in a public place. Peterson and Rice both suffered in their careers and in their families due to the take on how media portrayed them. If it weren’t for the newspaper headlines and social media, I think that the cases would have gone a lot differently.
Bein, L. (2014, November 28). A complete timeline of the Ray Rice assault case. Retrieved April 11, 2015, from http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2014/5/23/5744964/ray-rice-arrest-assault-statement-apology-ravens
(BBC) NFL star Adrian Peterson arrested for child abuse. (2014, September 13). Retrieved April 11, 2015, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29186682
Zinser, L. (2014, November 4). Adrian Peterson Agrees to Plea Deal in Child-Abuse Case. Retrieved April 11, 2015, from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/sports/football/vikings-adrian-peterson-reaches-plea-deal-in-child-abuse-case.html?_r=0