Public should know the facts

"If you're covering a criminal trial and there's horrible, horrible details about a sexual assault, would you call that gratuitous or would you call that necessary to understanding the crime? We should not be turning our backs in open court because we think people might be upset by it."

-- Kathy English, Toronto Star public editor

The Brandon Sun's crime and court reporter covered a four-day trial in Brandon Court of Queen's Bench earlier this month in which a 28-year-old man faced multiple charges including assault, assault causing bodily harm, sexual assault using a weapon and voyeurism.

As reported, the man's charges stemmed from an approximate five-year relationship with his ex-girlfriend, who testified that the man had sexually abused her numerous times in spite of her telling him to stop. She also stated that the man threatened the couple's young daughter, and physically abused her on a few occasions.

The man, whose name has been protected due to a publication ban put in place to protect the victims, has pleaded not guilty. At the end of four days of testimony, the judge reserved his decision and was expected to set a decision date in December.

Unfortunately, this is certainly not the first case of sexual assault that has come before the courts, nor will it be the last.

In fact, we have covered several sexual assault incidents this year, including a case just a few weeks ago where a 61-year-old man was found guilty of sexually abusing his stepdaughter and granddaughter, with the offences stemming back to the late 1980s. The judge's sentencing decision in this case, too, has been reserved.

What's different about the most recent four-day trial between the woman and her ex-boyfriend has been the response from at least a few in the public who believed that our coverage was far too gratuitous for their taste in news reporting.

"I understand that you are interested in reporting the news and want to show that the abuser is a monster, however you also re-victimized the 'victim.' I know that no names were released, however the intense details were not needed to get your point across, in my opinion," wrote one reader, who was concerned that other women would read our accounts of the trial and decide they didn't want the details of their own experiences splashed across social media and the pages of the paper -- and thus decide not to go to police.

"The recent coverage of alleged sexual abuse between a man and woman in the city has occupied prime space in recent papers," wrote another. "It is difficult to understand why the public needs such intimate and disturbing details of this very personal situation. Is there nothing of interest to occupy these prime reporting areas in our paper? Such a private matter should remain private. Disappointing!"

They are not alone, of course. There is a view among critics of sexual assault reporting that recounting the graphic details of sexual assault in an effort to educate the public is unnecessary, and merely forces the victim to relive the events. Surely we already know sexual assaults are harmful. So why provide details?

To my mind, as news media we have an obligation to report the facts as they come out in court -- not out of some preposterous need to demonize the defendant, or the complainant for that matter. We report such facts for the same reason that we report on the details of a homicide investigation, an arson or a robbery. These kinds of cases have victims too, and sometimes the details can be equally horrific.

We did, in truth, report some very graphic details that came out during witness testimonies and cross-examination. There can be no doubt of that.

What we did not do, however, is sensationalize the story. We did not use slang or overtly colourful language to describe the details or the people involved. There were no screaming headlines demanding readers' attention to any particularly salacious details. In fact, we did the opposite, warning readers at the start of the story not to go any further if they found such reporting too difficult to read.

The Brandon Sun is not a tabloid. The details in our series of stories were necessary so the public could grasp the magnitude of the charges.

A few years ago, Dalhousie University sociology professor Christopher Murphy gave an interview to the writer of a story that appeared in the publication King's Journalism Review, discussing journalism ethics and sexual assault reporting.

Murphy stated that both domestic abuse and sexual assault were often perceived as private problems until feminist groups forced the issue into the public sphere in the 1970s and 1980s.

"Various studies during this period also revealed the staggering extent of sexual assault in Canada," the article reads. "This time period also saw a significant increase in the number of sexual assault articles, as well as an increase in the number of graphic depictions of sexual assault. There was also a significant increase in the number of articles that address sexual assault as a social problem. These changing attitudes led to changes in Canada's rape laws in 1983. These new laws had various effects, such as shifting the burden of proof away from the victim and making it illegal for a man to rape his wife."

I agree that we need to be cognizant of victims of sexual assault, and the impacts that media can have upon them and their families, both positive and negative. But censoring factual information will only make for an uninformed populace.

There can be no understanding if we, as news media, withhold information from the public. And to my mind we do a disservice to the cause of justice -- for all parties involved -- when the public is ignorant of the facts.

» Matt Goerzen