TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/123091/1230620.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 3.5 KB | 77 lines

                                                                                ETHICS, Page 61

Was She Right to Go Public?


After long insisting on anonymity, Willie Smith's accuser raises
issues of fairness by revealing herself on TV

By RICHARD ZOGLIN -- With reporting by Sophfronia Scott Gregory/
New York


    Her face was obscured at first by a small gray dot, then
by a big blue one. Most stations bleeped out her name when it
was mentioned during the trial. And news editors across the
country wrestled with a tough question: whether to override a
basic principle of journalism -- to give the public all the
available facts -- in order to protect her wish for privacy and
a chance to live a normal life after the case was closed. So
when the woman who accused William Kennedy Smith of rape shed
her anonymity on ABC's PrimeTime Live last week, the nation's
press corps could have been excused a muted groan. What was the
point of all that self-censoring if she was going to reveal
herself on a TV talk show scarcely a week later?

    Patricia Bowman -- the name virtually every news
organization now felt free to use -- told ABC's Diane Sawyer
that she came forward so that other rape victims would not be
scared off by her experiences. "I'm not a blue blob. I'm a
person," she said. "I have nothing to be ashamed of." According
to her lawyer, David Roth, Bowman turned down offers of up to
$500,000 to tell her story, choosing Sawyer because of her
"impeccable reputation for integrity." PrimeTime paid her
nothing, but she told Sawyer she would not rule out taking money
for future interviews.

    Editors and broadcast executives were justified in feeling
disconcerted. "I think we did the right thing ((to hide her
identity))," said Tom Johnson, president of CNN. "But I do feel
awkward about it now." Johnson and other news executives said
her about-face will not change their attitude toward identifying
rape victims. Explained an ABC News spokesperson: "Our policy
is not to reveal the names of rape victims unless they choose.
If at any time during the process they choose to go public, then
we would name them." One news organization that may feel
vindicated: NBC, the only TV network that consistently broadcast
Bowman's name.

    For the most part, the press was extraordinarily
deferential toward Bowman. One news organization that initially
named her, the New York Times, reversed itself after an early
article describing Bowman's background drew heavy criticism.
Even after the acquittal, most news organizations continued to
withhold her name.

    Bowman's appearance raised other fairness questions:
Should she be allowed, after the prosecution failed to prove her
charges in court, to reargue the case on the TV talk-show
circuit, where there are no rules of evidence? That, at least,
is a double-edged sword. Under Sawyer's questioning, Bowman
reiterated her version of events on the night she claims she was
raped. But she also had to face questions about issues that were
kept out of the trial, like her alleged drug use, abortions, and
her experiences as an abused child. No one, of course, can be
denied a chance to tell his or her side of a controversial
story, and appearing on TV talk shows has become almost a
constitutional right in America. But the sight of Bowman going
public in prime time will surely linger in the minds of news
executives the next time a victim's plea for privacy clashes
with the prerogatives of a free press.