Victims and Survivors can either be empowered or traumatised when their experiences of Child Sexual Assault and Sexual Assault are told in the media. Speaking out, either by choice or not, often comes with a high personal cost- paid by the victim.
The telling of their experience is often out of the control of the Victim and Survivor, even when taking extreme care to select a journalist who has proven integrity and who offers safety, dignity, compassion, and empathy of the story; they can lose control of the narrative at some point when other journalists rescript and sensationalise events in a tabloid fashion and not treat it with the respect it deserves.
These sensationalised and often misogynistic and minimalistic headlines are designed to control the narrative around the story. This means controlling the portrayal of both the Victim and the alleged offender. The sole purpose of this is to maintain the status quo, protecting the patriarchy by influencing and reinforcing societal conceptions of the ideal victim and offender. To silence Victims and Survivors, victim blame and deny.
The portrayal of alleged violent criminals by a listing of their past achievements and shining accolades instead of the facts, while at the same time using minimising and trivialising language to describe the seriousness of horrific crimes committed, or alleged to have committed, is a timely reminder of the systemic abuse, intimidation, and character assassination of the Victims and Survivors who speak out. It worsens the inequality and injustices that victims and survivors face, with the common goal or intent to discredit women and protect perpetrators.
While those alleged to have committed violent sexual crimes against women and children are afforded presumptions of innocence, privacy, and protection; Victims and Survivor's private lives and pasts are minutely inspected, publicly discussed, assumptions of guilt leveled at them, have their character assassinated and are subjected to further abuse and humiliation- even while providing mountains of evidence. Even after being proven without a doubt in a court of law.
The online environment means a Victim’s and Survivor’s story is available forever, the nature of social media means they are subjected to insurmountable continuous trolling, abuse, threats, and loss of safety causing significant distress and further trauma. The lives of Victims and Survivors significantly worsen.
The vicarious trauma for other Victims and Survivors and their families and friends who read, watch, and listen to these stories and narratives can also be overwhelming. And it reinforces to many why reports of Sexually Violent crimes are not made.
To further the inequality Victims and Survivors are subjected to discrimination with the media deciding which women matter. It is the magnification of stories of white, cisgender, straight women that we see.
The media is not supposed to pay for stories. Chequebook journalism is inexcusable and calls into question ethics and it can easily affect the credibility of the information the source provides. In contrast, tabloid newspapers and television shows, which rely on sensationalism, regularly engage in the practice. Yet, it's not uncommon for men to be paid to deny our stories in sensationalistic interviews with significant financial reward.
ANROWS released its final report into Media representations of violence against women and their children in 2016 stating "There is a clear link between media reporting and attitudes and beliefs about violence against women, with audiences’ emotional responses and attributions of responsibility affected by how the media frames news."
Seeing this and hearing the large sums paid to these men, reinforces myths and stereotypes that women “do it for money”. While Victims very rarely receive payment for their story to be told. In my experience, those that take their story public, do it to warn and support others and create social change so that what they experienced does not happen to someone else.
Victims and Survivors also rarely receive any form of compensation with offenders often being adept in knowing their rights- hiding and transferring assets or distributing them into superannuation. Further, the expense of any civil action is often beyond the reach of many victims and Survivors.
The media have a responsibility to cause no further harm wherever possible. If reporting is done poorly, it can have devastating effects on the Victim by perpetuating further trauma, and society by creating harmful- often inaccurate perceptions around Child Sexual Assault and Sexual Assault.
Media coverage of violent crimes must move away from tabloid reporting and focus on facts and appropriate use of language otherwise they are opinion pieces rather than news.
The Australian Government National Office for Child Safety in conjunction with the University of Canberra News and Media Research Centre has released a useful resource Guidance for media who are reporting on Child Sexual Abuse. Except for recommendations specific to Child Sexual Abuse, the information can be easily adapted to all Sexual Violence.
Our Watch also has useful guidelines for Reporting on Violence against Women.
The media has a responsibility to lessen the inequality & injustices that occur due to how it treats women speaking about Sexual Violence in a clear and unbiased form, in comparison to men denying criminal conduct.
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