Exposing a sexual assault victim’s assault without consent is wrong, even if she’s a candidate for Congress
What would happen if a conservative media outlet reported on the sexual assault years ago of an African-American woman who is now running for Congress after she pleaded, repeatedly, that the outlet not do that?
I think we all know the answer. That media outlet would be blasted for re-victimizing a victim, and the attacks would be well-deserved.
So what should we make of the decision by POLITICO magazine, as Fox News reported, to do this: “In a profile of Green’s career and candidacy in the Indiana congressional race, Politico reporter Adam Wren used the documents, which the outlet claimed ‘were obtained by a public records request and provided to Politico by a person outside the Mrvan campaign’ to report last week that ‘an Iraqi serviceman sexually assaulted her by grabbing her breast and exposing himself’ when ‘she and a small group of officers visited the national training center.’”
Does it make a difference that the candidate is Jennifer-Ruth Green, a female Republican candidate, and an African-American veteran of the US Air Force, who stands a realistic chance of winning a historically Democratic district?
It shouldn’t make a difference, but it’s hard to imagine that Politico would have done this to a Democratic woman running for office — and if the magazine did, it would deserve the attacks it would get for doing so.
For better or for worse, certain segments of society still stigmatize victims of sexual assault. Also, many victims don’t want to be identified because that particular type of crime, unlike most others, is especially personal. With occasional exceptions, media routinely redact — edit out — the name of sexual assault victims even when, as is often the case, the name is publicly available in court documents.
Some might excuse Politico’s decision by noting that this assault involved a woman who was then a private figure, but is now a public figure who is also candidate for public office. While true, it’s not what media did with the wife of Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, who has accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. Jennifer Siebel Newsom decided on her own to go public with her name, and has now been subjected to all sorts of abuse not only by Weinstein’s defense attorneys, but also in public.
Perhaps it was unavoidable that the wife of the California governor would have her name revealed, so she decided to get in front of the story and go public. California isn’t exactly a small state, and its governor’s wife is going to get attention from national media in a case like the Weinstein assault accusations.
Still, going public was her choice.
It wasn’t Jennifer-Ruth Green’s choice.
This sort of thing simply should not happen, and it likely wouldn’t have happened if Green were running in a local congressional race as a Democrat.
We have a First Amendment in America. Government cannot, and should not, stop this sort of abusive behavior by media. However, there are certain commonly accepted practices that most media voluntarily follow.
Among them is that most media don’t report on suicides, apart from two very unusual situations — basically, that the suicide was in a public place and is already known to the public, or involved a public official or public figure and is going to become known no matter what media do, so media reporting can get accurate information published to stop false rumors.
Likewise, most media don’t identify victims of sexual assault unless they choose to be identified. I see names on a regular basis in local court records of victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and similar crimes. Apart from very rare situations I would never identify a sexual assault victim, and cannot imagine identifying a victim of that category of crime who pleaded with media not to identify her.
Politico crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed. They can’t be stopped, and shouldn’t be.
They should, however, be blamed for their bad behavior.