Part 1. Situation Definition:
I attended the Foster-Foreman Conference of Distinguished Writers: Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown. She is an award-winning journalist and is responsible for bringing Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes into the public eye. Something that she said that I really loved was that she said her biggest award was getting Jeffrey Epstein arrested. I noticed that she brought up the fact that she interviewed some of the victims, 4 on the record, 3 off the record. This brings up the issue of how to interview victims, or if you should even interview them at all. Another issue I was thinking about was directly related to Jeffrey Epstein himself and not the reporting; he was threatening girls with their lives and the lives of their family members if they did not do what he told them to do.
Part 2. Analysis:
It’s tough to report on a case that could involve victims input. We saw in class a little while ago, a girl who was at school during the Parkland Shooting and her best friend had passed away. The network had this girl on live television answering questions about the shooting. This, is unethical. A high schooler, not even an adult, should not be asked to talk about a traumatic experience of this caliber on television. I understand that some people think this might not be a problem if they ask her first, but she is still a kid, and probably doesn’t know how hard this might be for her.
When watching the video of e network interviewing a girl about the Parkland shooting, we saw that she talked about the death of her best friend and started crying. If we compare this situation to the Epstein case, the victims of Epstein were probably also very upset when talking to Brown about their experiences. It might seem hard to figure out whether or not the emotional trauma caused by just talking about what Epstein did will outweigh the knowledge we gain from those interviews. But, I believe we can just imagine how badly he treated these girls instead of having in depth interviews about it.
In the article “Interviewing Victims” by Bonnie Bucqueroux and Sue Carter, they say “As a reporter, your goal should be to help them regain a sense of mastery” (Bucqueroux and Carter, 2019). Bucqueroux and Carter are saying that after an experience that’s as horrible as this one, a reporter should help the victim feel as though they are in charge of the situation instead of treating them like a victim. Though Brown did not talk about the exact questions she asked the victims she got in contact with; the very fact that she did interview some victims might be concerning to some. Of course, Brown interviewing victims is not as bad as what actually happened to them.
There are many ethical issues that Jeffrey Epstein was involved in himself. The one that really struck me the most was not actually sex trafficking, it was how he lured girls in. He manipulated middle school and high school age girls so that they would join him and would not be able to escape. He would tell them that he would hurt or kill them or their family if they told anyone about him. According to Brown, he would pray on younger girls who seemed to have no money or future. He told them he had a job for them that would pay a decent amount of money. Then he would send them to the people involved in the business and the girls would get there and be sexually assaulted and/or raped. This can not only physically but also mentally and emotionally mess with the victims.
In Economies of Violence: Transitional Feminism, Postsocialism, and the Politics of Sex Trafficking, an article by Jennifer Suchland, she says “trafficking does not exist until a victim is produced through the state’s judicial process” (Suchland, 2017). This means that we rely on the judiciary branch to create solutions to sex trafficking. Unfortunately, not every sex trafficking ring has been discovered. It took years to find out what Epstien was doing but eventually Julie Brown figured it out. Brown is only one person, she can’t bust every sex trafficker, but maybe the judiciary branch could investigate some on their own.
Part three. Conclusion
Getting to hear Julie Brown speak about breaking the Jeffrey Epstein case was an honor. It was so interesting to hear that she wasn’t scared for her own safety at all while she was investigating. Though she didn’t speak much about interviewing victims, she did say that she interviewed a few on the record and a few off the record. She didn’t say what she asked them or what they talked about but this caused me to look more into the ethics of interviewing victims. I discovered that there are different ways to go about interviewing them and what to say and how to say it.
Thinking about Epstein himself, made me very upset. I found myself wondering how he had gotten away with this for so long and why Julie Brown was the first one to really bring his case to the attention of the public. I felt so bad for the girls that had to go through what he put them through. Epstein should have been caught earlier on and our justice system should figure out a way to make that happen.
Part 4. References
Bucqueroux, B. and Carter, S. (1999). Interviewing Victims. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=467d9608-69e6-4dd5-a6e4-dbf3c2f9fc46%40sdc-v-sessmgr02&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=2655425&db=ufh
Suchland, J. (2017). Economies of Violence: Transitional Feminism, Postsocialism, and the Politics of Sex Trafficking. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=7&sid=467d9608-69e6-4dd5-a6e4-dbf3c2f9fc46%40sdc-v-sessmgr02&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=124585061&db=ufh