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The Denver Post
Bryant case revives name debate
Saturday, October 16, 2004 -
What's in a name?
As the Kobe Bryant sexual-assault case moves from criminal to civil court, where his accuser has no legal protection of her anonymity, the city's newspapers have delivered very different answers. The Rocky Mountain News named the woman for the first time in its Friday editions, citing fairness issues and the fact that she filed a civil suit in her own name, seeking monetary damages. The Denver Post continued its policy of not naming her, reasoning that fallout from the case proves that a powerful stigma still surrounds sexual assault. The conflicting approaches have revived a nationwide discussion among media experts and victim advocates over how to balance journalistic fairness with sensitivity. Conventional wisdom - buttressed by rape shield laws in criminal cases and widespread agreement among the media - once held that the potential personal damage to accusers outweighs any public interest in knowing their names. But that mindset has shifted in recent years, as critics of such privacy policies argue that they perpetuate the stigma of rape, are unfair to the accused and are virtually ignored by the proliferation of online media. Geneva Overholser, a former newspaper editor who now teaches at the University of Missouri School of Journalism's Washington, D.C., program, has long advocated naming accusers of sexual assault. Recently, she quit writing her online column for the Poynter Institute - a Florida-based journalism school and think tank - after Poynter editors removed the name of Bryant's alleged victim from her column, "Time To Name the Accuser." "We in the press are the last ones who ought to be keeping the flame of secrecy alive," Overholser says. "I hope we take this opportunity to change." Overholser argues that refusing to name sex-assault accusers is unethical because the media shouldn't prejudge one party worthy of protection; unjust because only the accused is named; and ineffective because, as the Bryant case demonstrated, the woman's name became widely known anyway. She adds that with this high- profile case moving to the civil courts, it represents an "extra step" into the limelight. When Bill Babcock, professor and chairman of the journalism department at California State University at Long Beach, advises newspapers trying to formulate their own policies, he focuses on one basic question: Is there a compelling reason to name the accuser? For him, no argument has yet tipped the scales toward disclosure - least of all the reasoning, particularly in the Bryant case, that other news outlets are naming names. "I think it's a difficult pressure, especially now in the age of more bloggers and Internet reporting," Babcock says. "There's no question that name is out there, but does that mean anything is served by putting the name out there?"
Click here for the official court website with officials court orders, filings and documents in the People v. Bryant case.
Click here to see a copy of the felony charges against Bryant in the PDF format. case.
Click here for a chronology of the Bryant case.
Click here for The Denver Post's graphic describing the events of June 30, 2003.
Click here for an interactive presentation on Bryant's career.
Click here for the 9NEWS archive on the case.
Click here for the CourtTV archive on the case.
"This," he says, "is the queen of spades." Sarah Graham Miller of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network says her organization opposes "outing" alleged victims against their will, largely citing the widely held theory that fear of public backlash and embarrassment discourages others from reporting sexual assault to authorities. She acknowledges that hotline calls seeking help from RAINN actually increased during the Bryant criminal case, but adds there's no way to tell if those callers also took the more difficult step of notifying law enforcement authorities. "It really is a double-edged sword for the alleged victim," Miller says. "On one hand, she wants to keep herself safe. On the other, she can take control of the situation. There's no clean answer to this question." Society has yet to treat victims of sexual assault with the same dignity as other crime victims, says Cynthia Stone of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Abuse, and she doesn't buy into the idea that the crime's stigma can be removed by naming the accusers. "It's society's burden to eliminate the stigma, not the individuals themselves," Stone says. "We cannot burden this victim or any victim with being the ones to pave the way there. "We'd love to see that changing down the road, but we're just not there yet." Staff writer Kevin Simpson can be reached at 303-820-1739 or ksimpson@denverpost.com . |