The Duke Lacrosse case and Sensationalism

The coverage of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case was irresponsible on the part of the media. Jounalists, trained to seek out the most controversial and scandalous stories, simply could not resist reporting a case where rich, white college athletes are accused of violent gang rape by a lower class, black "private dancer." A conflict involving sex and race is usually enough to warrant coverage, but the Duke lacrosse case additionally involved class and the issue of violence among college athletes.

For journalists and other workers in the media, people that have the mantra of "drama, drama, drama" drilled into their heads from day one, the drama of the Duke lacrosse case was a dream come true. However, the contributing factors of journalists and news anchors using emotionally charged words and including only facts that support one side made coverage more inflammatory than intriguing.

Focus on race, on gender, on class, and on the violence of college athletes was divisive more than informative and nearly all early coverage clumsily took one side over the other. There was the case of an article using the word "victim" as opposed to "accuser," and another article which repeated the word "alleged" more than six times in the first two paragraphs when describing the accusations.  Articles that gave the impression of being objective often only disclosed the facts that were favorable to only one side.

The increased media competition made shows like Nancy Grace intentionally manipulate facts and the emotional aspects of the story in order to produce the most attention-grabbing and fascinating piece.  Shows like Nancy Grace have done their job when they hit you over the head with an issue and an opinion with such force that you feel compelled to do a google search and find out the details.  All Nancy Grace wants is for you to remember that you heard it from her first.  On the other hand, there are shows like 60 Minutes which covet the last word on an issue and pride themselves on being objective and accurate.  However, shows like 60 Minutes are often no better than Nancy Grace or any other media outlet when it comes to objectivity.  

The coverage of the Duke Lacrosse case was nothing out of the ordinary in the context of the mass media of America.  It was only when articles supposedly covering the Duke Lacrosse case almost entirely talked about a single issue involved, such as the violence of college athletes or of the threat of hate crimes.  In response to the irresponsibility of the coverage, newspapers began to feature stories on the the coverage itself, berating other newspapers for sensationalism that they themselves were guilty of.  In the future, cases like the Duke Lacrosse case should be balanced and objective-- unless they are clearly opinion pieces.  In some ways Nancy Grace's coverage was more responsible than that of 60 Minutes, in that there is little doubt that Nancy's opinion is at work and on 60 Minutes the assertion is made that no bias is at play (when there really is).  Evidence should be presented for either side of a case like this, and there should be the same amount of evidence and the same strength of evidence for either side.