Situation Definition: Journalist Julie K. Brown came to speak at Penn State as one of two speakers for this year’s Foster-Foreman Conference of Distinguished Writers event. Brown writes for the Miami Herald and is best known for investigation the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking story. Her work played a big role in the case and she was praised for her work leading to Epstein’ s re-arrest in 2019. Brown shared with the audience everything that led up to her deciding to pursue the story.
Brown earned her journalism degree from Temple University. Before joining the Miami Herald, she wrote for the Philadelphia Daily News. Brown discussed how as a journalist, she had an interest in covering vulnerable communities which included topics such as racial profiling and corrupt police officers in the prison system. The Miami Herald received a tip that a mentally ill inmate in a South Florida prison was put in an extremely hot shower with no handles and ended up dying with skin peeling off of his body. I was covered up but Julie ended up exposing the story. The victim’s name was Darren Rainey and to Brown, he symbolized everything that is wrong with the prison systems.
Often guards aren’t trained and don’t know how to handle mentally ill patients. Inmates aren’t given proper medical and mental care. Exposing that story, led Julie to investigation other corrupt Florida prisons. This was a popular topic in the field of journalism at this time. Even the New York Times was covering stories like this in New York. Through investigating corrupt prisons, Brown began learning about how sex trafficking affected women in Florida Prisons. She did her homework on sex trafficking in Floria and every time she did a search, Jeffrey Epstein came up. Every time she came across his name, she’d wonder how he was getting away with it. That is when her digging into Epstein began.
Analysis: Julie K. Brown was not the first journalist to expose Epstein but she was the first to be successful. One ethical issue that came up during her investigation is how to go about handling women who have been sex trafficked. She spoke about how the women were reluctant to speak at first because being interviewed for them was like reliving the trauma. As journalists, when dealing with victims of things like sexual violence, you have to handle the situation carefully.
Brown wanted to find and interview the women who were sex trafficked by Epstein so that is exactly what she set out to do. Unfortunately, the women weren’t in the system. All the names in each case were labeled “Jane Doe.” Now that brings up the question of should they have been named in the file? Why weren’t they named? According to a New York Times article, victims of sexual abuse often don’t want to be named due to “fear of a public stigma can discourage survivors from reporting attacks or abuse” (Corbett, 2017).
One thing about dealing with victims of sexual or any type of violence is that they have to trust you. Brown had to gain their trust because they weren’t going to just open up to anyone. In the beginning, the women were a bit skeptic because they were not sure if Brown’s investigating and interviewing would actually make a difference. When Epstein was arrested as a result of Brown’s work, it made her happy because she got those women their long overdue justice.
Another ethical dilemma that Brown experienced was Epstein himself. It was clear that he had gotten away with so much already, so who was to say that her work would change any of that? Epstein was a straight, white, wealthy, and politically connected man. He used his money and power to destroy dozens if not hundreds of girls’ lives and the system let him get away with it. More than anything, this situation shows how screwed up the justice system is.
According to an article from Robert L. Trestman, cumulative disadvantage is a term used when nondominant members of society experience significant bias at each stage of contact with law enforcement and judicial processes. “When looking at over 185,000 criminal cases tracked by the New York County District Attorney’s office, findings reflected biases at each discretionary point: black and Latino defendants were more likely than white defendants to be detained, to receive a custodial plea offer, and to be incarcerated” (Trestman, 2018).
The Epstein case is a prime example of cumulative disadvantage because Epstein was the epitome of privilege and it showed in the way he originally got away with his crimes. It also showed in the fact that he was able to accomplish committing suicide while in prison. Meanwhile, his victims’ lives were greatly impacted by things such as drug addiction, sex work, and ending up in prison. Nobody, not even the system was there for those women, but Epstein had all sorts of power that he didn’t deserve behind him.
If I faced the same challenge as Brown, I like to think that I’d handle the situation as well as Brown. She had a few different ethical dilemmas coming at her while investigating Epstein and she handled it the way any journalist should. This was one of the biggest journalism stories of this past year and I’m sure she felt the pressure of how heavy the story would be. But she didn’t fall under pressure, she rose above it.
Conclusion: I was impressed by the work of Julie K. Brown. The success of her work is proof of what happens when journalists don’t give up on a story. Even though the Epstein case had been pursued by other journalists, she didn’t stop investigating until she found the exact answers that people were still searching for. She didn’t stop when it got hard or messy. She searched hard and fought well and in return, she was able to get justice for those women. She accomplished her goal. Julie K. Brown is the blueprint of what it means to be a great journalist.
When I think about Julie K. Brown’s experiences, I can’t help but think of Stephen Glass. Glass had so much potential and fell flat. Brown had that same potential but flourished. She made behaving ethically look easy though I know it was not. I guess everyone is meant for greatness and after learning about people like Glass, apparently, everyone isn’t meant for journalism.
References:
- Philip. “When We Name Names.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Apr. 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/insider/sexual-assault-naming-victims-standards.html.
- Trestman, Robert L. “Is Justice Really Blind? Nondominant Groups in the American Justice System.” Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online, 1 Dec. 2018, http://jaapl.org/content/46/4/416.