Media Coverage on Sexualized Violence against Children

Author's note: A conference presentation of initial findings        

So, in my presentation, I want to focus on 4 of the main general patterns that we found when we were exploring how sexual abuse cases are covered in Estonia. Im not going to focus on specific myths or stereotypes because, firstly, these are anyhow covered in the toolkit we will present soon, and secondly, I think the myths and stereotypes are a bit more known than perhaps these general patterns we discovered.

1. So Estonia is a very small country, both by land area and population. It takes you around three hours or less to drive from one side of the country to the other side. This also means that there isn't much regional or local coverage of news stories, perhaps only in cases like when there is a specific event happening in a certain city or something like that, but when it comes to sexual abuse cases - these are always covered nationwide. So, it's never like that the story is only covered in a small local newspaper and it will not be covered in the main daily newspapers. So, what we realised that happens in Estonia is that?when one newspaper breaks the story, the others oftentimes just copy the story.?In many cases they will not write a new story about the topic, perhaps only when they get some new additional information or develop a new angle, but often this is not the case. So, when one newspaper is breaking the story, what other newspapers are doing, particularly online, is that they copy introduction of the main story and then just add a reference, e.g. read the full story from that newspaper. Sometimes they put in extra effort, they write the introduction themselves, but it was very clear that?they always use the same language, same tone, same narratives, that was used in the main story.?So, if the main story uses incorrect terms, for instance, there was a story of rape, and for some reason in the text many times rape was confused with sexual harassment, and other news stories copying the original story did not fix that mistake. Also, when victims of sexual exploitation were referenced as young prostitutes on the main story, the other news outlets pursued the same narrative. When the pictures added to the main story were portraying a minor in a sexualised manner, a very young girl in a very short skirt, the other news outlets copying the story, used similar themed pictures. So, this means that media also affects media.
2. When it comes to harmful narratives and language, and also just using incorrect terms - what we observed with cases that were covered many times over period of time - usually, it is like that with court cases - at the beginning there is a story about a person being accused, and later on maybe about the case going to the court, and then afterward about the court decision. So, the coverage of the same case gets more objective over time, meaning that there is more unethical coverage at the beginning of the case, and later down the line the coverage oftentimes becomes more objective and ethical. And as it seems one of the main reasons for that is, at the beginning, the journalists don't have much information about the case of course, so they also have to come up with the right or suitable terms or the right words to deliver the news. And of course, when you're not the expert on the topic perhaps you can confuse the terms, or just not know the right terms. But later down the line when the cases go to court and prosecutors make statements or you read the court decision, more correct terms are being used because they use the legal terminology of these crimes. So, this is clearly one of the things, if you're not certain on what kind of term to use or what is the correct way to speak about a certain act, just go with the legal definition. Perhaps it's not that appealing to the reader, but at least it's the correct one and you will avoid situations where an act of rape is just by the lack of knowledge rephrased or discussed as sexual harassment.
3. The third one is a common one, I don't know if this is the case in other countries also, but?in Estonia many of the news stories anyhow are behind a paywall?(you pay the read the full story). So, the paywall has been a thing for a couple of years now. And I don't see a problem with using a paywall in general, of course companies also need to make money and so on, but there are certain things we could do here. So, as we discussed earlier that media has a very important power to shape the public discourse on a certain topic, including also on sexual abuse, but if you can only shape it for people who are willing to pay for it, this leaves out a lot of people. So, what I'm thinking, there are two things we could do about this issue. 1) we could think that sometimes certain stories of sexual abuse cases may be important enough to make these freely accessible to everyone. And secondly, if not making these stories fully accessible to everyone for free, perhaps just making sure that the information about where victims could turn to or seek help or get additional information about the topic, this part should always be freely accessible. Also, this is one of the things that anyhow should be included in most of the CSA news stories, so it would be good if such information is never hidden behind a paywall.
4. So, my fourth point is that news coverage of sexual abuse stories has?a very strong focus or emphasis on the perpetrator.?This is particularly evident in cases where the perpetrator is either a famous person or very respected in their community, but sometimes even in cases of perpetrators who are just regular average people. So, the perpetrators' side is very strongly represented. Often, the stories discuss what the person has done previously, what kind of achievements the person has, what kind of education, how liked or respected the person is in the community, how many children they have, are they married, also then they add a lot of pictures of the perpetrator, etc. But it doesn't stop there. Often, the stories include perpetrators' statements or justifications. Then sometimes these stories include statements from close friends, family members, colleagues. E.g., in this case of a horse-riding coach, who had been systematically for years abusing children. That case was taken to court, and there was a support letter sent to the court, which only stated good things about the perpetrator, and that he could have not committed the crimes for these and these reasons, and it was signed by 60 people, including previous students, their parents, parents of current students, co-workers, family friends etc. And there was a separate story of that, that people don't believe the coach did it. So, what kind of message this would send to the victims,?particularly during the ongoing court proceedings, or to other victims who are thinking whether they should go and report to the police? In many cases the stories also include the perpetrator's defence attorney’s statement. There has been statements, like?my client doesn't have the paedophiles profile, or you know?my client is a public figure, and such accusations would not happen to a person who's not famous. Or in one case, the attorney even went as far as explaining that?the 13-year-olds act very provocatively and they themselves try to trick others to believe that they are older than their actual age. There was also a story in media about an actor who was accused of sexual abuse, and that there are people who believe that the actor is innocent, and that these people created a Facebook group to show support for the actor - and this was a separate news story.?So, you see when we cover SA cases, it is very strongly focused on the perpetrator, not only what the perpetrator did to someone, but also their life achievements, statements from other people, statements from their attorneys. And there rarely is much about the other side - you know, the victims’ side. There are never statements about people who believe the victim, or almost never statements from victim’s attorney. I'm not trying to say that we have to give out details about victims' lives – no! What I am trying to say, is just that?victims’ voices are oftentimes missing from these stories.?Also, with a strong emphasis on the perpetrator, it makes it hard for the reader to see the child behind the story. So, it shouldn't be this way that the only focus is on the perpetrator. A good practise would be somehow balancing it out. Perhaps giving a voice to victims. Oftentimes it can't be done in a way that we make a story about the victim directly, but there are other ways to bring balance to the story. A good practise, that unfortunately is not that often used, is to make half of the story about the perpetrator as it usually is, and then other half of the story about child sexual abuse in general, maybe statements from the other side, perhaps from prosecutors or experts who work in the field with victims. Lately there has been some stories that use this practise, so the half of the story is representing more perpetrator’s perspective, and then the other half is maybe from an expert who explains that these cases are actually more common than we think, and that it's very common that young children do not come forward immediately, and possible reasons to it etc.

So, let's sum it up with some?general recommendations?for better, more ethical coverage:

• If you copy or paraphrase another story or use parts from another story, make sure that you are not repeating the mistakes from that story.
• If you don't know the correct or suitable terms, you can use legal terms, or maybe just research a bit, do a quick Google search and see what's the correct way to talk about this subject.
• Some stories should be freely accessible to everyone, but information about how and where one can seek help, should always be freely accessible to everyone.
• Please don't over represent the perpetrator, try to give voices to victims and ensure that there is some kind of balance between the two sides of the story.

This article is part of the project the Child sexual abuse crimes in media-coverage: Providing expertise for sustainable media support of the CSA crimes survivors in the Baltic Sea Region. These are just some initial results and recommendations from Estonia and these were presented at the conference ?Medienberichterstattung über sexualisierte Gewalt gegen Kinder in internationaler Perspektive/ Media Coverage on Sexualized Violence against Children: an International Perspective.“

We are currently working together with our project partners to finalize the report and the recommendations. The recommendations for ethical coverage of CSA cases will be published sometime in August.

More information about the project from the link below.