Media Torn on Using IDs

The abduction and rape of two Southern California teenagers this week may force the media to reexamine their long-standing policies of withholding the names of sexual assault victims.

On Friday, the day after the two girls were kidnapped at gunpoint from their desert community and rescued about 12 hours later by Kern County authorities, newspapers ranging from USA Today to the Los Angeles Daily News carried the girls’ names and photos. Other papers, such as the Orange County Register and The Times, did not disclose the victims’ identities. Similar differences also appeared in television news broadcasts and on Web sites.

For decades, virtually all news organizations have avoided using the names of rape victims, both to protect victims’ privacy and to prevent discouraging victims who might step forward but for fear of publicity.

The first statewide use of a new alert system to apprehend child abductors explains much of the discrepancy in coverage in this case. When the girls were abducted, authorities released the names and photos of the victims to aid in their rescue. The media learned that the girls had been raped only after they had been found and taken to safety.

The question then became for the media, now what? Many outlets reasoned that, because the information had already been made public it seemed pointless to pretend otherwise.

“I can’t recall another situation like this before, where the information was already out,” said David Colton, front-page editor for USA Today, which ran the victims’ names and photos above the fold of the newspaper with a story inside. “With the incredible saturation coverage going on, which included a victim’s father talking on television, we felt the cat was out of the bag.

“We’re all going to have to look a lot harder about how far to go and what the circumstances are,” he added. “We still have a responsibility to do the right thing.”

Standing by Rules

Other news organizations stood by their policies, even if that proved awkward or confusing. The Times initially posted the photos and names of the victims on its Web site, but withdrew them after news of the rapes had been announced.

“We have a rule, as a paper, not to run the names of rape victims and we didn’t see a reason not to stick to that policy,” said Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet. “If you’re going to be influenced by what everybody else does in this era of zillions of Web sites and zillions of television stations, then you ought not have a rule.”

KTLA-TV news faced the same decision. It too aired the names and photos of the two girls early on, but later withdrew them. “When it became clear that there was a sexual assault involved, we changed our whole outlook on the story,” said Jeff Wald, the station’s news director. “We did not disclose the names, we [obscured] their faces, we didn’t even give family names.”

He added: “I don’t see any other way to do this. We have to provide an accurate description with pictures. But we will respect the privacy if the story changes.” (KTLA-TV and The Times are both owned by the Tribune Co.)

The story did change slightly Friday evening when one of the victims granted a broadcast news interview. Once a victim goes public herself, the media put aside their restriction.

The disjointed media coverage upset some rape victims, said Jennifer Luck, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women, a nonprofit organization that seeks to eliminate violence against women. On the one hand, Luck said she understood the dilemma the media faced, once the identities of the girls had been disclosed. On the other, she said, once the sexual crime surfaced, it should have been left up to the teenagers whether their identities continued to be exposed.

“When a woman is sexually assaulted or raped, her sense of control is taken away from her,” Luck said. “It’s extremely important for the healing process that they have the choices every step of the way after that. It’s an issue of empowerment and putting control back into the hands of the survivor.”

Still, Luck conceded, it would be ill-advised in future cases if authorities failed to release the names of child kidnap victims for fear that a sexual assault might occur. The top priority should be to rescue the victims and apprehend the abductors as quickly as possible. However, if evidence of a sexual assault arises after a rescue, the victim’s identity should be immediately withdrawn, Luck said.

“It’s really a Catch-22 situation,” said Cinny Kennard, an assistant professor of journalism at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, who lectures on ethics. “If you don’t put out the names you lose momentum for the search. If you do and there is a sexual assault as in this case, the victim’s privacy is destroyed.”

Policies Date to 1960s

The policies against publishing or broadcasting names of rape victims began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, according to Kelly McBride, who is on the ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute, a journalism research institution in St. Petersburg, Fla. Unlike other crime victims, those who suffered sexual assaults were to be shielded from unnecessary publicity because of societal shame, McBride said.

“I don’t think we fully understand, as a society, why we react that way to rape and not other crimes,” McBride said. “But if you think about your daughter, wife or mother being raped, most people wouldn’t want that information made public. You don’t want to re-traumatize the victim.”

A recent example of a rape victim’s allowing her name to be printed involved the daughter of a newspaper columnist for the Omaha World-Herald in Nebraska. The columnist, Michael Kelly, whose daughter survived being shot and raped by an attacker, wrote: “[My daughter] says she wasn’t speaking for others or suggesting how they should feel. But she adds: ‘Why is it more shameful to be a rape victim than a gunshot victim?’ Surely, it is not. But there is shame in rape, and it rests squarely with the attacker, not the victim.”

Before another such incident occurs, McBride urged, news organizations should reevaluate their polices and reach out to viewers and readers for guidance. “We need to be open about examining our motives. One motive is to tell the truth and part of that truth is naming names and showing pictures,” she said. “But another motive is to minimize harm and we have to be sure this policy really does minimize harm.”

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Times staff writer Greg Braxton and librarian Scott Wilson contributed to this report.