The Daily Cardinal made the right decision in publishing a graphic account of the Sept. 4 sexual assault.*
*According to the author of this column.
The asterisk following the first sentence speaks louder than the statement itself. Asterisks undermine the truth of the statements they accompany. These star-shaped caveats instill doubt. They imply a crucial omission or catch.
When it comes to sexual assault, it seems that all the facts come with conditions—asterisks, if you will. Public service notices on Madison Metro buses read ""One in eight women are sexually assaulted during their time at UW-Madison""—asterisk.
Connect the stars and find the footnote: The statistic was taken from a sexual violations survey in 1995. 1995? In terms of timeliness and relevance to today's UW-Madison student body, the fact holds virtually no legitimacy.
Although these announcements, first appearing in buses in 2001, serve to raise awareness of the prevalence and risk of campus sexual assault, they defeat that exact purpose. These unreliable numbers from bygone eras exacerbate the tendency to regard sexual assault as something that ""won't happen to me.""
In fairness, even reliable sexual assault numbers from the twenty-first century contain asterisks—as widely known, the number of cases reported to police may vastly understate the number that actually occur. For example, in 2004, the Madison Police Department received 212 calls for service in cases of sexual assault.*
*But Kelly Anderson, executive director of the Dane County Rape Crisis Center, estimates that only approximately one in 10 victims actually report sexual assault. Anderson emphasized, ""reports are notoriously unlinked to instances.""
This fact was also underscored in the archaic 1995 survey, which reported that police only received 17 sexual assault reports that year. According to the one-in-eight survey finding, police should have received approximately 2,000 reports based on the number of enrolled females.
According to Anderson, a victim generally refrain from reporting sexual assault for fear that her body and personal experience ""becomes a commodity that other people get to use."" Anderson added. ""If victims feel they will be exposed publicly... it makes everybody less safe because it makes it less likely that people will report.""
So how can the press reconcile accurate reporting with victim privacy rights? Instead of institutionalizing a vocabulary of nuance, taboo and political correctness in reports of sexual assault, journalists must apply the same standards as they do with other forms of violent crime: Protect the identity of the victim, but report the crime in unabridged English.
Victims need silence and right to privacy via confidentiality of name and all possible identifying factors, not through ambiguous police briefs buried in the news hole.
In providing the public with powerful, accurate narratives of sexual assault, journalists can encourage victims to report sexual assault without fear of exposure. Rape is not PG, and it should not be censored to that level.
With appropriate sensitivity to victims and steadfast adherence to the facts, the truth about sexual assault can emerge from the shadow of the asterisk.
For more information, contact the Rape Crisis Center Campus Office at 608-265-6389. In cases of emergency, dial the crisis line, 608-251-RAPE.
