In some ways Jerry Sandusky’s trial on sexual abuse charges is familiar territory for news outlets. Most have policies against naming alleged victims of sexual assault.
But the defendant, the media attention, and the public interest are not at all typical. And between word-of-mouth, social media and Fifth Estate bloggers, the identities of these victims could spread beyond the courtroom.
That’s what prosecutors are telling victims, according to a story published Thursday in the Patriot-News:
Part of the preparation includes the realization that they will have to publicly state their names for the court record. …
When that happens, nothing can stop bloggers, anonymous commenters, Twitter users and anyone with a keyboard and Internet connection from broadcasting their names to the world.
Sara Ganim notes in her story that news organizations generally don’t name victims of sex crimes. But that doesn’t mean news outlets will stick to those policies.
Poynter ethics faculty Kelly McBride said mainstream media sometimes make exceptions in high-profile cases, especially those involving sports figures. One news outlet has asked her for advice on how to handle victims’ names in the Sandusky case.
Her stance: News outlets should stick to their policies. “I can’t imagine any mental gymnastics you could do to justify naming them,” she said, considering that this is a criminal trial, in which the victims are compelled to testify, and that they were children when the alleged crimes occurred.
But it’s quite possible that the names will become public, if not at trial then in numerous court documents. That has happened already; earlier this month prosecutors included the names of alleged victims and witnesses in a public court filing, then asked that it be sealed.
McBride told me in an email:
So it’s very possible that someone will publish the names of the victims on the Internet. Those names and other information about the kids could go viral on Facebook or 4chan or Twitter.
That has happened in just about every case where someone has accused a sports figure of sexual assault, like Kobe Bryant or Ben Roethlisberger.
However, just because the name is readily available, there’s no reason newsrooms should give up their commitment to protecting victims. Editors should be wary of this, especially if they allow the public to comment on their stories about the trial, or if they embed a Twitter feed into their coverage.
News outlets have to keep their eyes on all of the publishing and conversation platforms they use, not just their websites. Should they turn off comments on stories about the Sandusky case? Should they avoid Twitter feeds that pull from people outside their staff? How will they handle their Facebook pages?
Cate Barron, executive editor of the Patriot-News, told me by email and phone that discussions in the newsroom have extended to how they would avoid accidentally photographing one of the victims outside the courthouse. “At this point, we only know the names of a few of the alleged victims, let alone what all eight look like,” Barron said, noting that alleged victims probably will be brought into the courthouse through another entrance.
“We have a longstanding policy not to name victims or alleged victims of sexual assault,” she said. “Our bottom line is, we’re going to stick to our policy as much as we can.”
That policy extends to “everything we do,” she said:
Our online editors in the newsroom and a team at our affiliated website, pennlive.com, will aggressively monitor comments on trial coverage as they have with everything we’ve done on the Sandusky story for the past year.
Is this a perfect system? Of course not. But we’ve been trying our best to honor our policy, and we’ll continue to do so.
A Guardian story published Friday showed how a news organization could inadvertently identify a victim. In April, the U.K.’s Sky News broadcast a story about Twitter users who had revealed the name of a rape victim. In doing so, the news outlet broadcast an image of a Twitter feed with the woman’s name. U.K. law prevents anyone from publishing the names of victims of serious sexual offenses; police are investigating.
News outlets have reached different conclusions on identifying victims in high-profile cases in the U.S.
When the woman who accused Kobe Bryant of rape re-filed her lawsuit under her own name – her first one was filed anonymously – The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News reached opposite conclusions on naming her. The Post didn’t name her; the Rocky did.
Rocky Editor John Temple explained a couple of the key factors: that it was a civil case, not a criminal case, and the woman was seeking monetary damages. Temple told Poynter at the time:
In the criminal case, we did not name the accuser because it was the state of Colorado prosecuting the case. The state, in pursuing the criminal case, was attempting to vindicate a state interest. Her accusations had been filtered and weighed by authorities, who had decided that they passed a threshold that made them worth pursuing. (Even in that case, the judge had ruled that the woman’s name could be used in the courtroom once the trial began. In other words, it would be public once the trial started.)
There remains the possibility that the judge in the Sandusky case will allow the victims’ identity to be shielded in some way. Diane Moyer, legal director for the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, said she believes the victims’ attorneys will file a brief seeking some measure of protection in the courtroom.
Even so, there’s a limit to how much their identity can be concealed, Ganim wrote: “If the public is allowed to listen to and watch testimony, there is a strong possibility that those who take the stand will be recognized by members of their community.”
Jury selection in the Sandusky trial is expected to begin June 5.
