slemslempike | (no subject)

I am incensed with news coverage about rape. Three primary aged girls were attacked in a park and the police are questioning a fourteen year old boy. The news reports insist on saying "suspected rape" and "alleged attack". It disgusts me. When I look at the headline of newspaper, if there's ever a story about rape, it always has liberal use of quote marks. Girl, 15 "raped" by gang. "Police hunt for suspect in "sex attack". This isn't about presuming innocence of suspect before they are proven guilty (or more accurately, let go without charge, or in the unlikely event of a court case, get found 'innocent'), it's about making sure that everyone understands that women lie, that most so-called 'rapes' are stupid sluts changing their mind, or just making it up all together.

I have never seen a report saying "family angry after 'burglary'", or "man in hospital after 'mugging'". The victims of those crimes aren't automatically disbelieved, even though there's no proof that mugging victims didn't hide their money, stab themselves and throw themselves downstairs to get some bruises. Or that people don't say "please take my stuff" and then decide they didn't mean it and they want the police involved. It's just rape, and it's purely about casting women as liars. It's revolting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That really enrages me too. Urgh.

It's so insiduous. And I don't like the use of "claimed" instead of "said". Like, "the victim claimed that he raped her" instead of "the victim reported/said/stated" that he raped her. I really do think that it's at least partially a conscious reaction from a belief that automatically assumes that women lie about rape.

Along with all the awful, awful things that it is, it's also completely shithouse journalism. When I was learninig to be a journalist, back in the Dark Ages, the only -- ONLY -- allowable attribution was "said", because you know what? Anything else is fucking SUBJECTIVE.

I bet that the argument for all the quotes and the claimed is that they want to be objective - strange how impartiality is much more of an issue when it comes to taking a woman's word.