Situation Definition
On October 23, Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown spoke at the Schwab Auditorium as part of the Foster-Foreman Conference. She came to Penn State to speak about her experience while reporting the Jeffrey Epstein story. In 2018 she wrote the article, “How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime,” about the Epstein scandal.
While listening to Brown speak there were many different ethical messages that she spoke of. All of them are useful takeaways for students and professionals alike to use for years to come. The two main messages I took away from the lecture are identifying sex crime victims and the power of their voices.
Analysis
Brown was gathering information for an article about women in the Florida prison system. When conducting interviews for her story, a common name kept coming up from the women. Jeffrey Epstein. As she started to put her story together for the Epstein story, she wanted to make sure the victims felt supported. Brown has experience of trying to help her community as she did a story about a prison inmate being killed, which led to major changes in the Florida prisons. It is a common thing to not identify sex crime victims in journalism unless they want to come forward and for Julie K. Brown, she had the opportunity to tell these women’s story, while empowering their voices.
Not every victim wanted to come forward, but for those who did Brown had to relive very traumatic periods of these women’s lives and naming them could further add to this trauma. As a journalist when debating whether to name the victim or not, it’s important to have the right motives. “Whatever path they choose, they should be guided by professional ethics and never simply by a desire to be first with a detail that will increase ratings or circulation,” (Orand & Stone, 2013, p. 33). Brown said it herself, she didn’t care about any prizes she could win from her reporting, she just wanted the truth to be out there, to help these victims get the justice they deserve.
When reporting and describing in detail this Epstein story and the Florida prison story, she kept mentioning how important it was for the voices of the victims to be heard. Yes, these were abuse victims, but their voices should and would be heard as loud as anyone else. Brown felt that this was important because back in 2007 Miami’s top federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta agreed to keep Epstein’s plea deal away from the victim’s knowledge. Despite a federal law completely against this, it is exactly what happened.
Yes, the story was about Epstein’s scandal, but the victim’s voices were a major factor in it. Their voices could finally be heard. Throughout Brown’s article, their lives before and after their Epstein experience were described in detail. This secret plea deal made it seem that that state was not supportive of the women and that’s why Brown’s reporting was so important. It was important to hear their voices and to support them because, “shame may motivate individuals to engage in experiential avoidance, which, in turn, may be associated with greater depressive symptoms,” (Bhuptani, Kaufman, Messman-Moore, Gratz & DiLilo).
While I have never experienced familiar challenges, I would recommend what Brown did her reporting. I would like to say that if I were to face these challenges I would’ve followed what Brown did. I would consider what it means to name the victims, what I gain as a journalist and what the story gains from the victims being identified, while also trying to make sure the victim’s voices be heard.
Conclusion
Some lessons I learned from Julie K. Brown is that a story of this caliber needs to be handled carefully. The ethical and professional ramifications of this sort of story are front and center, so it’s important to be aware of any harm you can do. Another thing I learned is the power of the pen, or in this case the keyboard. Throughout history there have been major journalism exposé’s and Brown’s work could be considered one of the biggest in recent memory.
It’s important to discuss these issues because our society is greatly impacted by them. As journalists identifying victims and giving them their voice through your story is something we talked about recently in class, and I’m sure it’s talked about many times over in newsrooms. Brown said herself it was more important to get justice for the victims than it was for her to win any awards. Her biggest prize was Epstein being arrested as fast as he was in due part to her work.
References
Bhuptani, P. H., Kaufman, J. S., Messman-Moore, T. L., Gratz, K. L., & DiLillo, D. (2019). Rape disclosure and depression among community women: The mediating roles of shame and experiential avoidance. Violence Against Women, 25(10), 1226-1242. doi:10.1177/1077801218811683
Orand, A., & Stone, S. (2013). Naming Victims of Sex Crimes. Retrieved from https://www.spj.org/ecs11.asp.