The manner in which a story is written can drastically affect how the reader perceives the information. The words used, the tone of the article, the aspect of the story which is most focus upon, and the information included – or sometimes, deliberately not included, can entirely shift the reaction a newsreader will have to the article. Kristen Houser of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape recently gave a presentation on this subject at Penn State University. The two most intense ethical messages I took away from this presentation are the manner in which sexual assault is described in news media, and victim privacy.
In written news media, description is everything. Writers have to carefully choose which words to use when writing a story, because words that may seem interchangeable can actually be perceived very differently, and could entirely change how a reader understands an article. For instance, Ms. Houser brought up the practice of describing the harm placed upon a survivor of sexual assault. In some cases of sexual violence the only physical harm to the victim could be the actual penetration. In such cases, newspapers will often print some variation of the phrase ‘The victim was unharmed’. This is detrimental to the survivors and contributes to rape culture. Just because the victim may not have suffered any physical injuries form the incident, the mental damage can be multitudes of degrees worse than any physical harm they might have received. When it is implied that a victim was unharmed it increases the likelihood that their ordeal will not be taken as seriously as someone who did received physical injuries.
Another ethical issue brought up in the presentation was the privacy of sexual assault survivors in news media. This is often a conflict because on one hand, the reporter has a duty to report the whole story. On the other hand, many survivors of sexual assault wish to not be identified or associated with the issue. This contributes to the problem of severe underreporting of sexual assault in America. However one news outlet, the Winston-Salem Journal, actually makes it a policy to identify the victims by name in their articles. This has been a controversial issue for the paper for many years. One survivor brought up the issue, saying:
“I was hesitant to file charges against the person who had raped me twice, repeatedly threatened to kill me… all because I knew that my name would appear in the Winston-Salem Journal. How many people get away with rape in this city because the victim is afraid of possible shame, threats, etc. after being named?” (Haws, Ramsey, 1996, p. 98).
Some people, however, argue that survivors should be named in the news. They say that we should not be, “…treating rape as so horrible that we can’t name the victim…” because it,”… makes us party to creating the stigma” (DeSilva, 1984, p. 43). They argue that choosing to not name survivors contributes to the problem of victim blaming because it gives survivors a reason to hide.
I personally believe that sexual assault survivors should not be identified in news media. I believe that the stigma surrounding sexual assault comes from other aspects of our society, and that survivor anonymity does not contribute to it. It is very important to discuss these issues because the news is often the first time anyone will hear about something, and it gives them their first impression of it. It is hard to break first impressions, and the words and information used by news writers can alter that impression significantly. If we stop discussing these issues, these phenomena will continually affect news media in a negative way, which will lead to the negative impact being spread to other areas of society.
References
DeSilva, B. (1984). The gang-rape story. Columbia Journalism Review, 23(1), 42-44.
Haws, D., & Ramsey, M. (1996). The Winston-Salem Journal and the identification of sexual assault victims. Newspaper Research Journal, 17(3/4), 98-104.