Leveson Inquiry: More than just phone hacking

The Leveson inquiry, born out of the ashes of the phone hacking scandal has put the spotlight on many other aspects of media ethics. One of the most prominent of these has been the poor reporting of violence against women in light of the submission’s put before the enquiry by End Violence Against Women (EVAW), Equality Now, Object and the rape charity Eaves.

One report by the Daily Mail of the rape of two under-aged girls described the incident as an ‘orgy’ and described the girls as ‘lolitas’ before describing in graphic detail what occurred during the incident. The question must be asked: who is this type of newspaper report serving? Does it help to draw public attention towards a troubling incident and lead society to analyse why this event occurred and how similar events can be avoided on the future? Or is it instead designed to provide illicit titillation to Daily Mail readers who like to see themselves as the moral barometer of the UK while consuming these types of story every day?

EVAW also argued that reports such as the one provided in the Daily Telegraph (see the link below) do not treat violence against women in an ethical manner. By focusing the story on the alleged reason for the perpetrator’s actions, it is almost giving a reason as to why the perpetrator acted in the way that he did rather than focusing on the horrific nature of the attack and the consequences of this. This runs dangerously close to the ‘she asked for it’ attitudes that it was hoped had been removed, at least from the mainstream British media.

These submissions have drawn attention to the fact that the media must be extremely careful when reporting any violent crime in order to; one, ensure that those who have suffered as a consequence of this violence are not re-victimised by the subsequent reports; two, that editors do not use these reports to focus on the explicit details that could provide titillation in order sell more papers from a story that should not be treated in a light-hearted manner and finally; to ensure that society’s reaction to this type of story is not in direct contrast to the manner with which such matters should be treated i.e. humorous titillation vs. disgust at the suffering of others. It will be interesting to see what occurs as a result of these issues being brought to public attention.

Link: The Daily Telegraph