The question centered on fairness.
J. Tyler Ballance of the Potomac Shores community in Westmoreland County called after reading a Briefly column item in the Virginia news pages of The Times-Dispatch on June 3. The wire service item, out of Roanoke, reported that an airline pilot had been arrested and charged with rape of a flight attendant during a stopover there.
The pilot was identified by name, age and his city of residence in another state. The flight attendant was not identified. The article said only that she was not from Virginia.
That the woman was not named concerned Ballance. “It seems awfully biased . . . to run this story disparaging this man’s name and not even mentioning who it was who charged him with this crime,” he said.
He expanded on his complaint in an e-mail message.
“If it is all right to omit the alleged victim’s name, in fairness you must also omit the alleged perpetrator’s name. Otherwise, you drag a man’s name through the mud and contribute to prejudice among potential jurors.
“Your policy of protecting the victim while publishing the name and other details about someone who is charged, before they are convicted, means that women are not equal to men but ‘more equal’ in the eyes of the RTD and other papers.”
He wrote that he has no personal interest in the case in point, but insisted that “women should be held to the same level of accountability as any other citizen who charges a fellow citizen with a crime. If every citizen has the right to face his accuser, then a journalist has the duty to report both sides doing the facing.”
The policy here and at most newspapers across the country is not to identify anyone, male or female, who law enforcement authorities say is a victim of sexual assault. Exceptions may be made and the person identified (1) if the victim is killed, (2) if he or she gives permission for use of the name, or (3) if the person goes public by filing a civil suit.
The origins of the policy likely go back at least to 19th century standards of conduct and the stigma affixed to women who, if it were known they had been assaulted, might be judged as having been at fault – “they brought it on themselves.” A rationale for the policy today is that victims, if they knew their identities would be made public, could fear to report an assault.
Stigma goes both ways, reader Ballance contends. Naming a man charged in an assault against an unnamed woman will damage the man’s reputation even if he turns out to be innocent of such allegations. “She must be publicly accountable for that charge,” he wrote.
Ballance is not alone in supporting public disclosure of the complainant in sexual assault cases. Coincidentally, the argument came up in March at a seminar held at The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., a school where working journalists find inspiration and knowledge in interaction with faculty.
Bob Steele, a senior faculty member and director of ethics programs at Poynter, said the issue of identification of sexual assault victims was “hotly debated by our Poynter Ethics Fellows.” A columnist for Gannett News Service argued for disclosure on much the same basis as Ballance.
“I respect that view, although I don’t agree with it,” Steele wrote me in an e-mail. “There is a big difference between the alleged victim and the alleged perpetrator.”
He pointed out that a charge, even based on an allegation, is filed only after police and prosecutors believe they have the evidence to bring the charge and pursue it in court. The court has the responsibility to avert any possible jury prejudice.
“To be sure,” Steele added, “an individual accused of sexual assault is branded with some form of ‘scarlet letter’ in the eyes of the public, just based on the accusation.
“That means the journalists covering the story must do everything possible to bring fairness to the story, given the tilted table at the beginning of these criminal cases. . . .
“Journalists should dig hard to get the accused’s side into the story in his or her voice or through an attorney.
“The story – in tone, headlines, proportion, placement – should heighten the fairness to the accused as well as appropriately protect the alleged victim.”
Only a few newspapers follow a policy that sides with Ballance’s view. One is the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal, like The Times-Dispatch, a Media General newspaper.
Until about two years ago, the Journal identified the complainant in sexual assault cases when charges were filed. The policy subsequently was modified to identify the complainant only when the case comes to court.
Policies on news reporting may change as society’s standards change. For now, in coverage of sensitive cases reporters and editors face a challenge not to tip the fairness scale for either side in dispute.
