For a person who has already been violated once, all the media exposure violates them again. We have a strong tradition of defendant’s rights. But if you’re a victim, you have fewer rights than an accused person.National Center for Victims of Crime executive director Mai Fernandez • Offering an argument against the idea of naming the victim in high-profile rape cases like that of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. There’s a good point in this — we do everything to cover the stories of high-profile sexual assault cases — but we never name the victim, even when we note every other detail about their lives, down to their money problems. The tradition of not naming the victim in cases like this one, which stretches back a century, is getting fresh scrutiny in the wake of new details in the Strauss-Kahn case. One guy getting some airtime as a result of these new revelations is Alan Dershowitz, a defense lawyer most famous for the O.J. Simpson trial, who says that the practice saddles the defendant with the presumption of guilt — especially when, as in the case of Strauss-Kahn, they take a perp walk. What do you guys think? Is Alan barking up the wrong tree? source (via • follow)
![Slate’s French site names victim in Dominique Strauss-Kahn case
Did you guys know there was a French version of Slate? It’s true. And while it shares the same hue of purple as the mothership, it’s editorially independent and the Slate company owns a tiny 15 percent share of the product. Anyway, the site yesterday published an article noting the reported victim’s name in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal (which we will not link directly here; if you’re interested, you can dig yourself) — a usual no-no in the world of journalism. And one that a few other outlets have also broken. But why Slate.fr, which carries the rep of a highly-regarded site that would never do something like that? According to an interview by The Atlantic Wire, the site’s founder, Eric Leser, says they did it to fight buck against the conspiracy theories that have grown around the story in France. “The story that we have published is proving that all of [these] theories are false,” he said. “That’s our main reason.” Do you guys agree with this stance? Do you think Slate.fr is making a mistake by publishing this? source
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Did you guys know there was a French version of Slate? It’s true. And while it shares the same hue of purple as the mothership, it’s editorially independent and the Slate company owns a tiny 15 percent share of the product. Anyway, the site yesterday published an article noting the reported victim’s name in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal (which we will not link directly here; if you’re interested, you can dig yourself) — a usual no-no in the world of journalism. And one that a few other outlets have also broken. But why Slate.fr, which carries the rep of a highly-regarded site that would never do something like that? According to an interview by The Atlantic Wire, the site’s founder, Eric Leser, says they did it to fight buck against the conspiracy theories that have grown around the story in France. “The story that we have published is proving that all of [these] theories are false,” he said. “That’s our main reason.” Do you guys agree with this stance? Do you think Slate.fr is making a mistake by publishing this? source
We’re supposed to be all Libyans, we are all brothers, but this is what the Gadhafi militia men did to me.A reported rape victim • Talking to hotel staffers who were trying to restrain her (and her story) at the hotel where members of the press were invited by Gaddafi’s government. We’d like to note one thing: The AP notes in their article that the policy on naming rape victims is to only do it when they volunteer their names, as she did in this case. We think that we don’t have to necessarily follow that standard in this case. We greatly debated it, though. We can tell the story just as well without it. source (via • follow)
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