(no subject)

[slemslempike]

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.

Comments

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Fucking RIGHT. I actually can't understand why there's never been a serious challenge to it.

Could we do it, actually? I know the Press Complaints Commission only takes complaints from the subject of the story, but is there another mechanism? I'm sure we could mobilise the feminist internet mob over this.

[leedy.livejournal.com]

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

Er, no, I think it is newspapers covering their arses against being sued into the middle of next week.

There's a lot, an awful lot, that annoys me about news coverage of rapes, but always referring to "the alleged assault" before there's actually been a trial doesn't really bother me.

[alohomoron.livejournal.com]

That really enrages me too. Urgh.

[jekesta]

Argha rgharhgharhahghrha. YES! It omg. Yes. <--fear my articulation in the face of evilness.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Aaaargh!

[squeeful.livejournal.com]

OOoohh, yes. But atleast you see 'rape' in your articles there. Here it's 'assaulted'. As in, "he threw the victim down the stairs and assaulted her." Nope, rape doesn't happen.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

I was disconcerted because on radio 5, it changed from "3 girls have been raped" yesterday evening, to today's "the 'alleged' rape" and I wondered what had happened to make them change their wording. I still wonder. Did they realise that everyone else was using 'alleged' and feel left out, or what?

Anyway, I agree with your comments, and if you do find a mechanism for complaining about it, then please share.

[pathology-doc.livejournal.com]

Feeling sick right along with you.

This is dodgy-weavy journalism, and it revolts my sense of truth to the core. The word "alleged" carries a lot of emotional baggage, one item of which is the assumption that the "allegation" is never true.

"Alleged" is a word that belongs in police and/or forensic reports that cannot, before the trial, be seen to make a definite statement about guilt or lack thereof. But that is specialised technical language in a limited, narrow context; journalists have no excuse.

I can understand the use of the term "sex attack" if the particulars are unclear (e.g. victim found with underclothes dissheveled but the memory of what actually happened obliterated by drugs or head trauma), but even then something better is required as and if the situation clarifies itself.