CHILD ABUSE: A COMPOUND TRAVESTY

Here is a hypothetical case, but not too hypothetical:

A charge is made that a little boy was sexually abused by his father when he was 5. The boy says so. His mother says so.

You’re a TV reporter. To your surprise, the mother gives you permission to reveal details of the alleged molestation and interview the little boy about it on camera.

No mask to protect his identity. No blurred features. No silhouette or shadows. No electronically disguised voice. No phony name. No secrets. The little boy will be interviewed full front and his name disclosed.

You’re aware that the publicity could have a damaging effect on the boy, perhaps even scar him publicly as much as the alleged molestation scarred him privately.

But your job is reporting news, not withholding it. And besides, the mother has given permission, so you’re clear. Now comes decision time. Do you air the story, the interview, the whole ugly episode?

“60 Minutes” did.

The lead segment on Sunday’s program closely paralleled the above hypothetical case. A 7-year-old boy, who says his father molested him two years ago, was interviewed by Harry Reasoner. Marc, whose father and mother are now divorced and embroiled in a complicated custody case, described the alleged sexual abuse in wincingly graphic detail.

“He did?” Reasoner asked about the father’s alleged act.

“Yeah,” Marc replied.

“Your father?” Reasoner asked.

“Yeah,” Marc said.

“And you remember that?” Reasoner asked.

“Yeah,” Marc repeated.

Marc’s 13-year-old brother, Justin, was interviewed by Reasoner too, and so was their mother, Janet Sue Senseney of Scottsdale, Ariz., who approved this journalistic travesty.

“If you were surprised that a mother would encourage her children to go public about a matter so private, it also surprised us,” said Reasoner in a classic cop-out at the end of the segment. “She said she did it because she thought what her children had to say would help other children.”

Well, as long as it’s for a good cause.

Help other children? What about her children? What about Marc, now famous coast-to-coast after his alleged sexual abuse story was told on CBS? Yes, it must be some kick for Marc now that even his friends and classmates know the intimate details of his story.

His mother recalled for “60 Minutes” how she first saw evidence of Marc’s alleged molestation, how he was “very raw and very red” and how “he could not keep his hands off of himself at all. He was pulling at his penis, and just couldn’t leave his hands to himself.”

Marc’s mother wanted all of this on TV, and that was good enough for “60 Minutes”? Didn’t “60 Minutes” have reservations?

“Of course we did,” said “60 Minutes” executive producer Don Hewitt in a telephone interview from New York. “It would always surprise me when a mother would encourage a child to talk so publicly about a matter so private.”

Despite being surprised and having doubts, “60 Minutes” went ahead, and Hewitt said he had no regrets. “It’s not a story you would do without the mother’s concurrence,” he said. “We found it surprising not only that the mother concurred, but that she encouraged him to tell this story.”

It’s hard to imagine any right-thinking parent doing that, or any right-thinking program letting her decision be its ethical compass.

Did “60 Minutes” consider the possible harm its story would do to Marc? “We’re not so arrogant to think that any story we have is all right to run,” Hewitt said. “But I think that every day in every newspaper in America there is a piece that could do harm to someone.”

So that gives “60 Minutes” the right to bash a 7-year-old?

By the way, Marc may be known to America, but his father isn’t. Viewers were not shown Marc’s father, who was identified only as “Rick.” He refused to be interviewed, according to Reasoner, and his attorneys spoke for him, contending that the mother was trying to come between him and his sons.

At issue here is not whether Rick did or didn’t sexually abuse his son (there seems to be evidence that Marc was abused by someone, although Reasoner said that a judge in the case did not find Rick guilty), but whether “60 Minutes” should have aired this story in any case. The answer is no--period!

After living with their mother, the boys are now back with their father as a result of a complicated legal ruling. Reasoner asked Marc’s older brother, Justin, about life with father. “Are there any . . . any further sexual troubles?”

Justin: “Not that I know of, no.”

Reasoner: “Not with you?”

Justin: “Not with me, no.”

Reasoner: “Marc?”

Marc: “No.”

Did “60 Minutes” really expect two young boys to make new charges of sexual abuse against their father on national TV just because Reasoner looked so understanding? And even if they were sexually abused, was “60 Minutes” the place to discuss it?

What was the purpose of this story anyway? Was it another of those murky cases of the public’s right to know blindsiding the individual’s right to privacy? The public’s right to know what? That a woman and her young son charged his father with sexual abuse and that a judge ruled that the charge was unproven?

“The essence of the story,” Hewitt added later, is “who do you believe?”

No, the essence of the story is that there is no essence, no story and no compassion or humanity in giving a 7-year-old the TV treatment just because his mother said yes.

Someday, if it hasn’t happened already, Marc may rue the day that he told his story to Uncle Harry. The first abuse of Marc remains unproved. The second occurred Sunday night in front of America. He has his mother to thank for that.

And “60 Minutes.”