Who Owns a Story? Sensationalism, Ownership & the Right to Anonymity in True Crime Narratives
The media have a profound responsibility to uphold truth, objectivity and ethics when reporting on news stories. They are held to high standards, both legally and morally, but when it comes to true crime, and telling other people’s stories, they often fall short of their obligations. While legal restrictions on what can and cannot be reported during a court trial have been introduced in recent decades in many jurisdictions, those limitations often don’t cover the pre- or post-trial period.
In many cases, the victim, their family, their trauma, and indeed their story are seen as fair game to be dissected, amplified, and exaggerated by the mainstream media. Which begs the question, who owns a story? Particularly, once those details or points of fact are released and are in the public sphere.
the decision to go public ‘often means that the victim’s name is the one that people remember, while the identity of the offender is forgotten’.
A Tale of Two Sisters
Several decades ago, I learned of two sisters who had been sexually abused by an extended family member. The family were made aware of the abuse when the girls were teenagers, and as often happens in these situations, became fractured. Some members…
