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The Crime of the 'Official Line': Campus media covers assaults

By Abby Bertumen

Some argue that the Ithacan, the newspaper for the Ithaca College community and arguably the main source on campus news coverage, is doing an acceptable job in its reporting and address of campus assaults, safety issues and women's issues. The paper prides itself on the good relationship it has struck with Campus Safety and administrative officials, allowing it to present the facts of a case and provide continual coverage through the approachability of the Campus Safety investigators, as well as aiding in dispelling rumors and allaying the possible fears of the student body through the quotability of the campus administrators.

But for many on this campus, the Ithacan coverage of these issues is all but complete. They argue that the proactive, most often feminist, perspective of these issues is habitually downplayed or omitted from the reporting of campus assaults, and safety and women's issues, in favor of the sort of flashpoint, "hard facts" details that only Campus Safety and the administration can give, in the Ithacan's view. This particular coverage of campus assaults creates in the student, particularly the female, the feeling that one is fighting an individual battle to remain "safe," as well as avoiding being judged in the event something might occur.

Some might say that the Ithacan has thoroughly and effectively covered the occurrence of campus assaults, as well as their reflection of and affect on, the student body. However, others would say that all they have succeeded in is finding new ways to artfully portray the campus blue light phones, and more seriously, ignoring the need for a very important discussion on campus about assault and its connection to the sociology of violence against women and the politics of gender--a lacking that is too common a conception of all facets of mainstream media coverage.

Overly cautious reporting

Diane McPherson, writing and women's studies professor, aided her students in starting a Loud and Clear rape whistle program in the fall, after the initial reporting of an attack behind the Terraces in which a woman was forced to swallow a pill with a beer, and left with a bloody nose and a cut lip. The whistles are now being distributed around campus. While McPherson said she's happy that the Ithacan has called attention to this important program through an article, she finds a need for change in its reporting of such issues.

"Overall, I've been impressed over the years with the paper, but I do wish it were less cautious in its reporting of incidents with women and assaults," she said.

English professor Katherine Kittredge, who helped her women's studies class hold a forum to address the rumors and the dissatisfaction with little information about the first incident, agrees.

"They're taking real steps to making things visible, but I'm not sure they've got it right yet," she said. Kittredge adds that prominently displaying the occurrences of the incidents on the front page was one step on the part of the Ithacan. However, McPherson points out the reporting on the first assault, which occurred on Oct. 27, was covered in a small brief inside the paper--and the issue was not revisited on the front page until a week later.

As a popular source of information on campus for the students and as a publication that has built up the resources, connections and circulation for ongoing coverage of assaults and their corresponding issues, both students and faculty, including Carolyn Byerly, journalism professor who has worked in the reporting and study of assault issues, are concerned that the Ithacan is not taking advantage of its space to instigate a discussion of why these assaults occur or how they make the students feel.

"I think it's been very event-oriented and hasn't really helped us to understand the problem of rape very much; the fears that women live with everyday, the reality that many of us experience in terms of assaults and threats, and the fears of these," Byerly said. "There has been very little backgrounding about the nature of sexual assault or physical assault: the primary victims being female, the perpetrators almost always being male.

"These are gender issues and situation of experiences that demand a deeper more thoughtful analysis, and the event needs to be much more contextualized. So I would say, overall, there have been some facts, but there hasn't been context for understanding them so the meaning of them is lost."

The message of so-called 'fair' journalism

Covering the issue of sexual assault is what Byerly called "political stories as well as crime stories as well as stories about personal tragedy." She said, whenever she reads the Ithacan, she reminds herself that the authors are students and of the extreme difficulty of the nature of the story. However, she and others on campus have expressed concern for informative flaws as well as the conveyance of certain messages in the process of reporting.

Senior Jessy Land, co-leader of Students for Women's Empowerment, a group, along with the rape whistle program, which has counterpointed the Ithacan's and administrators' retroactive approach to assault and women's issues through its activism, questions the accessibility and fullness of the information put forth by Campus Safety, the administration and the Bias-Related Incidents committee, sources which the Ithacan relies solely for the bulk of its reporting.

"It's so vague," she said, adding that the Bias-related incidents, whose alerts the Ithacan reports in their safety log, choose not to include the specifics of the incident (e.g. the female was called a "bitch," etc.) and therefore the nature of the assault and the address of larger issues tends to get "lumped in the cluster" of the Ithacan campus safety log where only alerts are printed and no issue is raised.

Also, that the very first account of the assault behind the Terraces appeared in a small brief inside the news section raised some concern about the address of the importance of matter on the Ithacan's behalf.

Robert Bluey, editor-in-chief of the Ithacan, defends the decision to run a blurb the week of the initial attack, and then run a front-page story a week later. Because the main editors were away at a journalism conference and the events occurred on a Wednesday night, hours before the paper was to go to press, it was important not to hasten full coverage so the story could be "done right," he said.

"We felt that it was rushing to it without any editors there, it would be too difficult," he said. "So we held off for a whole week with that one, to make sure we did a good job."

However, the running of just a brief, and the vagueness of the information provided a week later, especially the cryptic nature of the reporting of the incident where the attack had not been deemed of any sort of sexual nature, but Land said that the beer and pill elements clearly warrant the address of this possibility.

Kittredge said the vagueness of the information release by Campus Safety and the administration and reported in the Ithacan contributed to the want of a public forum on the incident and its issues, to clear the many rumors that had ensued after the reporting of the attack.

"There was a sense of being very dissatisfied with the information being presented," she said. "We had all the sources right in front of us and we weren't any more satisfied."

Michael Bloomrose, the news editor at the Ithacan, said that the vagueness in the reporting reflected the vagueness of the information Campus Safety was willing to release.

"I think people should remember that we can only report as much as we know or find out, and then verify," he said. "Since the police forces here are so closely connected with the college administration, it's not like we're going to get two sides of this sort of thing."

Jason Subik, Ithacan staff member who reported the Terraces assault, as well as the story of the following forum and the account of the Towers assault in February, said he attempted to get as much information from Campus Safety as possible, including whether or not they believed it was of a sexual nature. He said they refused to comment. Subik said the behavior is "typical" of a law enforcement agency in order to protect their ongoing investigation, as well as the victim. Campus Safety reports are not public documents, and their entirety is not required to be released.

However, Campus Safety's close connection with the college administration has worried some students and faculty who believe that the issue of violence against women needs to be more vocalized, but has not been as a result of the cautious approaches of Campus Safety and the administration to the incidents in order to preserve the image of the college.

"[Campus Safety and the administration] limit themselves in what they can say and what they'll do," Land said. "I think that they try very hard not to look bad, 'bad things don't happen on this campus,' so no matter what happens, it's minimized."

That the Ithacan tends to reinforce this attitude is most salient in its coverage of the forum on Nov. 4, a forum that was planned and enacted by students, but one in which the Ithacan contextualized mostly with the statements of Jack Oblak, vice president of student affairs and campus life, and Robert Holt, director of Campus Safety. And, Kittredge said, that even though the forum story was figured prominently, the primary sourcing of officials resulted in a lack of address of important issues raised by the students.

"I felt that they [the Ithacan] missed some of the points that were being made, that they tended to gravitate towards what the guys in suits were saying," she said. "But I think there was some interesting things that students were saying, comments they were making, the fact that they were telling the administration these things was pretty newsworthy and that isn't what got reported."

McPherson, in attendance at the forum, said a male student raised an interesting point about how males should be made to stay in at least one night to see what it feels like to live as a female and constantly feel you have to guard yourself against potential harm. However, this point was not reported by the Ithacan. Kittredge felt the story, whose subhead read "Truth contrary to gossip: Oblak clarifies situation," reiterated the public relations message Oblak was trying to convey.

"There had been this rally and that everything was fine," she said, adding that it's a "natural problem" to ignore the significant undercurrents and turn to officials in such a chaotic situation.

McPherson said that not emphasizing the importance of different student opinions and concerns at the forum displaced an importance issue.

"I wish that we could have continuing attention to issues of women's safety because it's necessary," she said. "If these assaults have taught us anything, they've taught us that the whole campus has been much too optimistic."

Bloomrose said that the Ithacan quoted mainly Oblak because it was his responsibility to respond to the forum.

Reporting what critics call "the official line," has resulted in the lack of depth in the story, the lack of address of women's issues that surround assault. According to some, an integral part in correcting this discrepancy and beginning an open discussion of women's issues on campus is the inclusion of opinions of those faculty who have worked with such issues in the initial assault stories, as well as follow-up stories.

"I wish they would follow up with stories about, say, individual women on campus and their concerns about safety--some sort of consultation with more vocal women faculty about women's safety issues," McPherson said.

Byerly agreed. "There hasn't really been a solid exploration of gender or the politics of gender at all. And I think on a college campus, it's absolutely essential for that to surface.

"To my knowledge, no one has really gone to the experts on our own campus to help put a bigger picture together and so the reporting, if I could put one word on it, it would be incomplete."

Land added that the activist efforts of groups like SWE to promote discussion of women's issues and the empowerment of women sometimes are not followed as closely by the Ithacan as "the official line."

"I almost feel like we have to stamp our feet to get noticed," she said. "There are serious things happening on this campus that no one wants to talk about."

Land also said that the Ithacan tends to group together women's groups on campus, as well as resorting to the stereotype of women's activist groups: using a "Vagina Monologues" photo for an unrelated feature on SWE and entitling the article a glib, "Women's group not just for females."

"I would say that the stories are inherently male-oriented and male-dominated," Byerly said about the news coverage of the campus assaults. "We do not really know what women understand, think about, care about by reading these stories."

Subik disagrees with the idea that outside perspectives' knowledge of violence against women issues should be included in the coverage of a campus assault. He said that such stories were crime stories, "not an analysis of the sociological problems or causes of rape." He added that such stories are "dictated by events," and that outside perspectives would be more appropriate for follow-up features.

The 'otherized' individual

However, the nature of the sexual assault story, in an attempt for the safest and most correct way of conveying the facts, already lends itself to the critical analysis of the victim. In the so-called straight news story, the presentation of the information calls for, most often, the speculation of the victim's claims because of the alleged attacker not being apprehended and the very private nature of the matter. Because this view of the victim is unavoidable in today's society, providing information from experts about the victim's situation, her behavior and the sociology of violence against women seems extremely valuable.

On March 2, the Ithacan reported, in its hard copy edition (on Feb. 29, it reported the occurrence of the incident on an initial story in the online edition) a girl being attacked in the Towers, where she claimed a man had followed her into her room and pushed her. The woman said she kicked her assailant and pushed him out of the room. However, in the story published on March 2, which was neither an elaboration nor adaptation of the online story, the Ithacan highlighted the fact that there had been a controversy over the call the woman allegedly placed to Campus Safety after she was attacked. She said that she called 911 (which is automatically directed to Campus Safety) and three officers came to her room to question her. However, Campus Safety had no record of this. Two paragraphs were devoted to the actual attack, while the rest of the story detailed the controversy. And although the online edition (which, arguably, less students read) reported that the girl had suffered a minor bruise, this was omitted in the March 2 article.

Bloomrose said that the decision to underline the call controversy was made because it was the new information of the story, whose assault aspect had been covered online already.

"I would say [the controversy] became the clear story from our conversations with the victim, she emphasized that every time we talked to her," he said.

"That remained the clearest news of the piece." Bloomrose added that he doesn't make a distinction between the online and hard copy editions, and Subik also said there was no point in reiterating the details in the case which had already been put online.

The choice of the Ithacan to emphasize the controversy concerns Land."[It's frustrating] that so much of the attention was paid to the girl-'did she call, did she not'-it's almost like saying girls cry wolf," she said. "I'm a little bit leery of them paying more attention to that facet of the story than the break-in."

Subik, again the reporter of the incident, does not think that the underscoring of the controversy acted to discredit the woman. Regarding the statement she made about placing the call, Subik said he felt she was lying because of the conflict.

"I felt it was putting together some critical analysis to her and her statements that was extremely important considering the incident, because that incident had conflicting information," he said.

Bluey added that it's just as important to be critical of what the alleged victim has been saying as what Campus Safety and the administration have been saying. However, looking at the sourcing and the fact that Campus Safety and the administration are so closely connected, criticism of both institutions has not been significant in the articles--except for what Subik calls the sometimes lack of information.

McPherson said that it is the possible consequences of reporting that causes some assault victims to hesitate to come forward.

"They're afraid that they're going to be tried in the press or they're going to be harassed for reporting what's happened," she said. "It seems to me there might be a connection between coverage that seems to err too far on the side of caution and women not willing to speak out and be identified. It isn't a good climate to identify yourself as an assault victim."

Subik said that he isn't concerned that his story about the Towers attacks in light of the call controversy could cause people to believe the girl was lying about being attacked.

"I think it was important in terms of evaluating everything about the story," he said. "If they make the leap to look at everything more critically than that's a good thing, not a bad thing. Everybody's statement should always be looked at critically. I'm not saying that you shouldn't believe it, I'm saying you should look at everything with a critical, skeptical eye."

Also, Subik said he is a strong believer in that, although the assault victim should be protected as long as possible by remaining nameless, the victim should put their name and their face forward in the case of legal action. He said he also thought the Towers victim should have been named because of the debate over her call and because it "was not a sexual assault." However, Bluey and Bloomrose said the Ithacan decided against naming the victim because her potential harm would outweigh the potential benefit to the community.

However, Subik said that the unnamed victim is elevated to a "level of power and importance where [the victim] could make any claim at all and not be held responsible for it at all" and, whether found guilty or not, the accused is permanently branded a rapist. Requiring the female to come forth with her name when taking legal action is the only way to "even the playing field," as Subik calls it.

That's assuming that in our society, the playing field is already "even" between males and females, and the accused isn't already protected due to the language of the law and the omission of analysis of the fear of the victim and why they hesitate or recant.

"But it doesn't ever seem to be equal protection for the victim," McPherson said. "And that's unfortunate, because it means that women who are assaulted really hesitate."

McPherson also spoke about this assumption of equal protection and the reality of women's fear for their safety in the context of Ithaca College.

"I know a lot of women students feel unsafe and I think that feeling shouldn't be discounted and that reality shouldn't be discounted," she said. "Making the issue as serious as it is, because I think it's deadly serious, and it does create an atmosphere in which women students do not get an equal education if they have to be afraid to go out at night and if they have to call someone to escort them wherever they go. It's not equal."

And although Subik emphasized that a reporter should be critical of a victim's story in light of presented facts, no effort was made by the Ithacan to contact experts on campus to present a side of the story that might explain why the victim might be afraid to wholly come forward with her story. This wouldn't be out of place in a news story, as critical analysis of the woman's statement from the side of Campus Safety was already put forward. The omission of such a perspective is what Byerly considers to be unbalanced story.

The Ithacan, taking its cue from the administration, has also been criticized for its approach to the aftermath of the assaults, especially concerning safety. In the issue in which the Terraces attack was featured, the Ithacan also ran an article reporting that the request for Student Auxiliary Safety Patrol had increased, and the importance of the escort system. In addition, the Ithacan ran an editorial stressing the need to "join up with a friend" when walking outside after dark. While addressing safety is important, critics argue that this message particularly puts females, the majority of whom are assaulted, on the defensive.

"The danger that you run into with that kind of attitude [having to be on the defensive] when something bad does happen, you set up a situation of victim blaming," Kittredge said. "It's a bad attitude to create towards people who've been victimized and it's a bad attitude to create in the people who just live their lives. So the focus on fixing the problem by changing behavior seems to me [to be] distracting."

And when Bloomrose talked about challenging Campus Safety and the administration, he spoke only in terms of safety, not initiating an open and honest discussion of the issue and sociology of violence against women and the attitudes which seek to suppress such a discussion.

A new approach

In addition to including expert faculty perspectives on the subject, the fostering of such a discussion on campus about issues central to the women's movement, in order to understand assault, is central to a new media approach of the matter.

One thing that McPherson and her students have been discussing is the need for the re-education of men on the part of male students, faculty and administrators on campus, because she said that some men on campus have "dreadful" attitudes of women and don't attempt to hide it.

We need "more of a climate of men talking to each other and reminding each other that those things are not appropriate," she said.

McPherson said that no attention is paid to what she calls "the other end of the crime," in which males victimized females. She said this issue has not been covered in reporting at all.

"The reporting always addresses 'so and so victimized by this so and so,' and it doesn't go in the other direction and say this part of the population is the one who's victimized the other part. Why don't we address that?

"I wish that that emptiness at the other end of the crime didn't exist," she said. "I think that there's something in the climate of acceptance of misogyny and acceptance of the idea that women are not significant in their own right."

Byerly also added that portrayal of the victim in this reporting is flawed.

"I think that the facts also have sometimes not helped me to really understand the way in which the assaults have affected these women," she said. "Have they been able to go about their daily lives? Have they been deeply wounded? Have they been angry?

"I think she's portrayed as the helpless victim. I'm speculating, but I don't see them being able to speak for themselves, I think women who are assaulted need the opportunity to speak for themselves if they want to, whether they're named or not in stories. I think very often women want to talk about what happened to them."

Subik said he regrets the fact that the Ithacan did not pursue an interview with the female in the Terraces attack.

"I would have quoted her if I could have talked to her," he said. "If she had had anything to say, which I imagine she would have."

Subik has spoken to the Towers victim twice and said that he's convinced something happened to her, but doesn't know what. He said that he wanted to do a follow-up interview with her, but she is reluctant to do this.

Byerly, Kittredge and McPherson all expressed the need for more coverage on different student opinions--if not the victim than other students, who have undoubtedly been affected.

"The other thing about these articles that has made me uncomfortable is that the victim has been 'otherized' in a sense," Byerly said. "We've been made to think that this has happened to a woman, and she's not like the rest of us."

Bluey said that the Ithacan interviewed several students concerning campus assaults, but were wary in running opinions that involved situations that could not be verified. This, he said, contributes in part to the Ithacan using the official police line. Bloomrose said one success in reporting the affect of the assaults was in the front-page Terraces assault story, where two females and two males were interviewed. This did not provide much discussion as the two females stated they were "petrified," and the two males felt that they would be perceived as attackers in light of the assault. All perceptions associated solely with the changing of behavior specific to the occurrence of that attack, not an overall discussion of such violence and why it happens.

McPherson and Byerly believe that such a discussion must be straightforward and honest, and more serious than the Ithacan has covered it.

"I also think that victims' very often aren't bruised and incapacitated so much as just pissed and confused," Byerly said. "And woman's anger is something that reporter's don't really want to deal with.

"There has to a much more vigorous debate on campus about sexual assault and its remedies and I feel strongly that men need to be a part of that discussion," she said. "Only a few men are responsible for most of the assaults against women and all guys get a bad name because of it and they deserve to be just as pissed off as the rest of us."

Byerly believes student media is integral to promoting such a dialogue, and the lack of such an effort is glaring due to the fact the Ithacan is so widely read. Last spring, the Ithacan ran a package "Is Ithaca College safe?" which contained articles on the sociology of violence against women. However, the subject was not re-visited in light of the campus assaults because, Bloomrose said, the series still seemed current. Critics argue that the discussion of women's issues must be continually addressed and initiated, and contextualized.

"I wish the Ithacan would take a step forward in that direction," McPherson said.

Abby Bertumen is a junior print journalism major at Ithaca College.