Some stories just break your heart. You cover them, you write them, you print them and then you shake your head wondering what kind of human being would perpetrate such a crime.
The rape and beating of an 11-year-old Midvale girl is such a story.
And it led last week to about as tough a decision as news reporters and editors have to make: whether to name the child victim of a rape/beating after her father named and gave out photos of her during a news conference on Thursday.
The brutal treatment of the girl who was beaten in her own back yard, allegedly by an acquaintance of her father, was horrifying enough news for the Utah community. On Thursday, the girl’s doctor — using a model of a human skull — described her injuries and her prognosis. She improved from critical to serious condition, is breathing on her own and was able to squeeze her father’s hand.
TV stations dealt with the first ethical dilemma. Stations that carried the news conference live — including KSL-TV, Channel 5 — could not bleep out the girl’s name because they were not on a time-delay. But Channel 5 News Director Brink Chipman said they were able to avoid using the father’s name by superimposing the words “Victim’s Father” under the live image. KUTV, Channel 2, named the girl and carried her photo. KSTU, Channel 13, following its standard policy, did not run the girl’s picture or her name.
Channel 4, KTVX, avoided the first pitfalls on the story because the station does not carry a noon newscast.
Newspapers can pursue these decisions at a more leisurely pace.
Only people who have power can make ethical decisions. Management positions in media outlets carry with them tremendous responsibility, including an ethical component that can be most troubling.
Jon Fischer, news director of KTVX, Channel 4, which did not use the girl’s photo or her name, explained: “If the perpetrator had been a juvenile, you would not be able to use his name. We used the father’s name . . . we discussed whether we should [use the victim's name], but we could not come up with an overwhelming reason to take advantage of this little girl in that way.”
Fischer also mentioned a concern that should be part of any ethical decision in the media: “We are trying to be more conscious of community standards and to be more compassionate in our coverage.” Quite simply, know your audience.
KSL’s Chipman: “The father has the [legal] right to make his and his daughter’s identity public, but we talked about using her picture. We had concerns — does this identify her? People who already know her know what she looks like. . . . We used one picture, but we did not put her name under it. . . . It is not our intent to attach the words rape victim to a name.”
For years the rule on rape was inviolate at most newspapers and TV news departments: You protect the identity of a rape victim at all costs. This rule rested on two basic beliefs — the life of a rape victim had been violated already and a stigma attached to the victim in some readers’ and viewers’ minds. But sometimes even the most inviolate ethical rule can be pushed and shoved by events.
Take, for example, the abduction of two teens in California recently which triggered alerts on radio, TV and electronic billboards on highways in hopes of finding the young women. Their names and photos were used by stations, newspapers and others during the successful effort to find them. But after they were located and the suspect was shot dead by officers, one law enforcement official let slip at a news conference that they had been raped. Cable TV stations and local news operations stopped on a dime, pulled their pictures and omitted their names, until both girls voluntarily talked about their ordeal.
But they were teens old enough to make decisions about their lives. The Midvale girl is 11 and in shaky physical shape. So the father names her and the media start talking among themselves.
Reporters and editors at The Tribune debated the subject Thursday afternoon, in the afternoon news huddle. The father provided copies of the child’s photograph to the news media. In the picture, the girl is holding a large stuffed frog. It is one of those snaps that are tenderly pasted into the scrapbooks of millions of families; one of those photos that reflects the innocence of childhood and hints at the beauty of young womanhood.
Should the newspaper print it?
After all, some TV stations aired it and will air it again. But they may have an easier ethical task: Studies indicate people remember more of what they read and see than what they hear and see (TV). That’s how we are wired, apparently. So the girl’s name could blow in one ear and out the other of thousands of TV viewers.
However, when a newspaper prints a name, it creates a permanent archival record of the person and the incident associated. That’s a serious action.
Editors and writers at this newspapers talked about it several times. We had all the concerns TV people did and more — the issue of that permanent archival record. We decided to run the father’s name, but not the daughter’s. We published the father’s photo, but not the victim’s.
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