Julie K. Brown Embodies What it Means to Achieve Journalist Excellence
Situational Definition:
Julie K. Brown is an investigative reporter from the Miami Herald who played a huge role in breaking the Jeff Epstein scandal. She entered the spotlight when she revealed a plea deal that allowed him to escape sex trafficking charges. Her work helped lead to his arrest and incarceration. Brown came to University Park last Wednesday to discuss her reporting on the case. Julie Brown brought up her upbringing and how, even when she started out with the Philadelphia Daily News, she always felt an obligation to find justice for communities that were not represented well.
While working in Florida on stories about women’s prisons in the state, she discovered Jeff Epstein’s name on a couple occasions. As Brown started investigating she found that most of Epstein’s victims have resulted to living fractured lives. She found that many of the victim’s lawyers accepted plea deals. The two messages that bring ethical messages were her interviewing and identifying victims of sex crimes and her emphasis on fighting for vulnerable communities in need of help.
Analysis:
Sex crimes are different than other crimes. In journalism, its commonplace to not name or identify sex crime victims. In this case, the victim’s wanted to come out. In my opinion, it’s up to the victims, if they want to be named or don’t mind revealing their name then I suppose it’s fine. Journalist’s should always make the public their first priority but also need to think about how people will feel when certain information is revealed.
The other ethical message is one that I strongly agree with. Throughout time, certain groups within society have always been under-represented. I feel journalists have an obligation to help those communities by shining light on injustices. I would likely do the same thing in both situations that Julie Brown did and I think she achieved journalistic excellence.
Brown has been commended by multiple news companies including the New York Times and the Washington Post. NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer also had Brown on for an interview in which they discussed how Epstein’s suicide affected the case. In an open letter to the Pulitzer Prize Committee, Alan M. Dershowitz shamed Brown by accusing her of excluding factual information that would undercut her narrative. Many scholarly articles about sexual assault have come to fruition in the past years due to the increase of awareness
Journalistsresource.org published a good article about sexual assault and how survivors are scared to come forward out of fear and self-blame. This of course should never be the case and as journalists we need to emphasize that this is in fact not the case when talking about the details. Another article published by journals.sagepub.com detailed the way sexual offenders and victims are portrayed. It says that women are typically portrayed as responsible for their own victimization and that there coverage is less important than child victims.
As journalists, we should never specify blame on anyone. It’s our job to remain objective and just report the facts of the case.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, journalists must always consider the consequences of their actions. Most journalists would agree not to publicize sex crime victim’s names unless they are willing and it contributes to the case. I also agree with her theology of helping underprivileged communities during times of injustice. This story is still relevant because who knows how many people have gotten away with sexual crimes and with reporting like this we could uncover many other criminals.
In recent years with the awareness of sexual assault and the #metoo movement, journalist have shed light on numerous scandals. Journalists must remain loyal to the truth and to the public and only publish factual information that supports their claim. In my opinion, I think Julie K. Brown has shown journalistic excellence and did an amazing job bringing Jeff Epstein to the public eye.
Reference:
Dershowitz, A. M. (2019, April 3). An Open Letter to the Pulitzer Prize Committee: Don’t Reward Fake News. Retrieved from https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14003/pulitzer-prize-fake-news.
DiBennardo, R. A. (n.d.). Ideal Victims and Monstrous Offenders: How the News Media Represent Sexual Predators – Rebecca A. DiBennardo, 2018. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023118802512#articleCitationDownloadContainer.
Julie K. Brown On Latest Jeffrey Epstein Documents. (2019, August 10). Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2019/08/10/750086331/julie-k-brown-on-latest-jeffrey-epstein-documents.
Ordway, D.-M. (2018, October 9). Why many sexual assault survivors may not come forward for years. Retrieved from https://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/criminal-justice/sexual-assault-report-why-research/.
Sarah Ellison, P. F. (2019, July 11). Jeffrey Epstein’s case was covered in the media. But one Miami reporter made it big news again. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/jeffrey-epsteins-case-was-covered-in-the-media-but-one-miami-reporter-made-it-big-news-again/2019/07/10/80daf3dc-a264-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html.