The situation was, it seemed, perfectly designed to test the media’s commitment to one of its most time-honored policies: do not identify rape victims unless they give their permission. For many news organizations, it proved all too challenging.
The test came in the form of Roy Dean Ratliff, a career criminal who in the early morning hours of Thursday, Aug. 1, abducted two California teenagers and took them on a 12-hour, 100-mile terror ride. The drama ended that afternoon when Ratliff was shot and killed by police and the girls were rescued.
Over the course of the day the names and photos of the captives, 16 and 17, filled the airwaves and online news accounts. Newspapers prepared similar reports, with full identification, for Friday morning’s paper.
Then, as first edition deadline loomed, authorities – who by then had interviewed the girls – confirmed that Ratliff had sexually assaulted them. With that, their status changed from kidnap to rape victims.
But did the old rules against identification still apply? After all, the names had been widely broadcast all day Thursday as part of a massive citizen alert effort. Withholding the names at that point might even look silly. Yet, to publish them would be to violate a newspaper’s own policy.
In the end, most papers decided against identifying the girls and quickly remade their pages accordingly, informal samplings by the Globe and other news outlets suggest. Several networks made the same call. Yet what appears to be a substantial minority of papers went ahead and published the girls’ names and/or photos in Friday’s paper.
The Globe was one of them. Here’s what transpired:
When David Jrolf, the night editor, was told by the copy desk about the added rape charge, it was close to midnight, almost two hours since wire services had sent out the information. First edition papers were already being printed.
Jrolf quickly telephoned Michael Larkin, deputy managing editor for news operations, at home. They decided that the girls’ names had been so widely circulated that to pull them back would be ”confusing” to readers. Best to simply add the news of the rape for the later editions, they figured, but keep in the names.
Jrolf says the decision might have gone the other way if he had known about the rape earlier. ”It was a really, really tough call,” he says. He notes that in a followup story the next day, the Globe printed the name of just one girl, who had since chosen to identify herself via a television interview.
Will that explanation placate unhappy readers? Probably not. ”As a longtime subscriber to the Globe and a lifetime Globe reader, I expected more responsibility and discretion,” wrote a ”disgusted” Keith Gortze of Hyde Park. Said Jan Quiram of Jamaica Plain, ”I know you will say that [authorities] already released the names … I don’t care! These are children, and they deserve to be protected.”
I agree. Withholding the names might have done little to reduce the girls’ exposure at that point, but it would have underscored the Globe’s commitment to its own policy – even under the confusing circumstances of Aug. 1. The girls’ young ages made it even more important to stay the course.
”The key here is to honor our truth-telling obligation as best we can, and also honor the principle of minimizing harm,” says Bob Steele, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists. Steele says he would have withheld the names, and told readers why.
But here’s the real question: Does the episode signal that the long-held ”no names” policy is crumbling? After all, several big papers did identify the girls on Aug. 2, and the sky did not fall in. In fact, both girls went on to grant television interviews, waiving their claim to privacy, and thus letting papers who earlier identified them off the hook.
Some have argued the culture of shame surrounding rape will not end until victims speak publicly. Indeed, society’s understanding that rape is about violence, not sex, has grown in the years since the ”no names in print” policy was crafted. Add arrival of the Internet and a 24-hour news cycle, and you get a significantly changed landscape – one in which the old policy may not fit quite right anymore. This helps explain why so many editors bid it an unceremonious good-bye on Aug. 1.
But have things changed so much that it’s time for the media, not rape victims, to decide who gets named and how?
It’s a question worth exploring – although cautiously. Kelly McBride of Poynter’s ethics faculty favors beginning the conversation now, and including researchers, police and victims. I’d add psychologists and psychiatrists.
Where might such a conversation lead? ”I don’t know,” says McBride, ”but it’s got to be a better place than where we are now on this topic.”
The ombudsman represents the readers. Her opinions and conclusions are her own. Phone 617-929-3020 or, to leave a message, 929-3022. E-mail: ombud@globe.com.
