Lisa Cuklanz. Communication Review. Volume 23, Issue 4, October-December 2020.
Introduction
Mainstream news coverage of sexual assault in the US and in many other countries including Israel, India, Australia, and some European countries has been characterized by some problematic limitations (Nurka, 2013; Phillips et al., 2015; Rao, 2014; Sela-Shayovitz, 2015; Udas, 2013). Among the most common limitations of news framing have been the tendency to support and reiterate traditional rape myths that question the credibility of accusers and treat them as complicit in their own victimization, the privileging of expert and male voices, and the marginalization of the perspectives of victims and survivors of assault. Recent coverage of #MeToo echoes the framing and focus of previous news framing that should be recognized and understood if further progress is to be made on shifts in mainstream media coverage and public consciousness on issues related to sexual harassment, assault, and rape. This article demonstrates the central limitation of story framing that centers the accused and the organization of which he is a part. Voices of victims are quickly sidelined, and abuse of power is rarely mentioned. Although the purposes of the #MeToo movement are to call attention to the magnitude of the problem and its effects on victims, empathize and support others who have experienced sexual assault and offer a platform for them to speak, and raise consciousness around the experience of sexual harassment and abuse around the world, much mainstream news coverage avoids mention of these goals while simultaneously omitting content that would further them. An important reason for this omission is the daunting challenge of calling attention to abuses of power, particularly in the contemporary political context in which Trump was able to be elected in spite of his boastful claim that he could commit sexual assault with impunity. This context threatens to further legitimize the actions of the powerful and to minimize the experiences of victims.
What many people understand as the main events at the origin of the #MeToo Movement took place in October of 2017. Activist Tarana Burke had previously coined the phrase “me too” in 2006 as a tagline of support for survivors of sexual abuse (Santiago & Criss, 2017). Burke says that she was working with disadvantaged children and teens but found herself speechless when confronted with a young girl’s story of sexual abuse (Garcia, 2017). Wishing she had simply told the girl her own story, Burke coined the phrase “me too” to remind people of the importance and simplicity of supporting victims of sexual assault and abuse (Santiago & Criss, 2017). After the revelations during the 2016 presidential campaign of the Access Hollywood tape in which candidate Donald Trump boasted about grabbing women without their consent, many were dismayed that knowledge of these words and actions did not deter voters from sending Trump to the White House. In the wake of the election, public sentiment against abuse of power to harass and assault women with impunity gained traction, particularly with breaking news about the abusive behavior of Roger Ailes, Harvey Weinstein, and others. In October of 2017, perhaps without an awareness of Burke’s original use of the phrase Me Too (Brockes, 2018), actress Alyssa Milano invited people to use #MeToo to post about their personal experiences of sexual assault and abuse. Tens of thousands of people soon used the hashtag.
In some ways, October, 2017 marked a turning point in public expressions of disapproval of the treatment of women understood to have been perpetrated by politicians and media icons. A New York Times report in October 2017 detailed that Fox News had previously settled 5 harassment cases with 13 USD million, and a sixth with Lis Wiehl for 32 USD million in January of 2017 (Steel & Schmidt, 2017). During that same month, the first reports of Harvey Weinstein’s abuses were published in the New York Times and The New Yorker. Weinstein was accused by multiple women of pressuring them into unwanted physical contact, as well as sexual contact and assault. Also on October 12th of 2017, Buzzfeed broke the news of Moira Donegan’s “Shitty Media Men” list, a google spreadsheet that could be updated by various users. Although the list was intended to be used privately, it quickly went public, and eventually several men including Hamilton Fish of the New Republic and Lorin Stein of the Paris Review resigned. Others including Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker were fired. Multiple accusations surfaced against Kevin Spacey, prompting his ouster from the hit series House of Cards. In November, NBC executives met with and heard the sexual abuse complaint of a woman against Today Show host Matt Lauer (Gabler et al., 2017).
In December, as traction in public consciousness of the scope of the problem grew, Time Magazine named “silence breakers” as “person of the year.” The move was understood as a political statement in part because of Donald Trump’s well-publicized claims that he has held the record for Time Magazine covers and that he declined an interview for the Person of the Year issue in November. The article covered a range of women who have broken the silence surrounding inappropriate workplace behavior, including migrant farm workers and Hollywood actresses. A wave of scandals rocked the United States Congress in December, resulting in resignations of Senators Trent Franks and Al Franken as well as Representatives John Conyers and Blake Farenthold. On January 1, 300 Hollywood women formed the “Time’s Up movement, publishing their “Dear Sisters” letter in solidarity with all victims of sexual harassment and abuse, in the New York Times (Buckley, 2018). The most important event of January was the series of over 150 victim impact statements given by the young women who were sexually molested by USA gymnastics coach Larry Nassar. Nassar was sentenced essentially to life in prison. The impassioned statements of many victims and even the statement given in court by the sentencing judge were headline news for weeks.
Although the context of the Access Hollywood tape and the election of Donald Trump are important factors in the sudden rise of #MeToo, it would be a mistake to think that the #MeToo movement grew spontaneously or was simply due to anger about the events of the US election. Rather, it is important to realize that for almost two decades, since at least 2002, news audiences in the US have been repeatedly shocked to learn about serious, and often serial, abuse of women and children by sexual predators who were able to violate some of the most innocent, vulnerable, and trusting people under their care or within their sphere of influence. Although contemporary cases understood as part of #MeToo are more centered on abuse of adults, the steady years-long background of high-profile abuses of children as well as adults, in cases involving Jerry Sandusky, the Catholic Church (Park, 2017), and Bill Cosby (Francescani & Fisher, 2018; Roig-Franzia, 2018) has helped to shift public understanding of what is possible, and thus have contributed to the credibility of contemporary victims and the believability of what might have been incredible allegations in an earlier era. Although anger and frustration with the election of an admitted sexual abuser to the presidency of the United States were significant, there is no doubt that the serial shock experienced by the news audience in the US over a much longer time frame was an important factor behind the explosion of the #MeToo movement onto the scene in October of 2017. After the revelations about Bill Cosby, even more recent publicized cases contributed to the specific explosion of #MeToo. In 2016, Roger Ailes, CEO of Fox News, was sued by Gretchen Carlson of firing her for refusing to sleep with him and for creating a hostile work environment (Reilly, 2016). He resigned in July of 2016 after attempting to deny the allegations. Just a month before Ailes death, Bill O’Reilly, host of the Fox program The O’Reilly Factor, was fired following numerous abuse and harassment allegations against him, and after more than 50 advertisers pulled their ads from his show (Garber, 2017).
In the context of these events, it has been noted that #MeToo has shifted “public sympathy in favor of survivors by changing the default response to belief, rather than suspicion” (Tambe, 2018, p. 198). However, while it has become difficult to ignore the words of women and children who come forward to talk about their experiences of sexual harassment and abuse, mainstream news coverage of allegations of sexual assault and harassment by prominent men is still characterized by problematic framing that privileges the point of view of the accused and is based largely on official explanations and denials. Significantly, there is still a reluctance to focus specifically on abuse of power as the central issue at hand, especially when the perpetrator is a well-known figure such as a politician or celebrity. While it is now clear that payouts, cover-ups, and passing the buck have been common approaches to sexual predation in a wide range of institutions from churches to media outlets to athletics organizations, dynamics of power and institutional structures that foster abuses of that power are seldom the focus of mainstream news stories about specific cases. While our respected investigative news outlets have brought many of these stories to light, most individual stories omit detailed allegations and still focus instead on the accused and the institution affected by their behavior. Victim voices and explanations of abuse or power and its effect on those targeted are still much more rare. While #MeToo coverage emerged in a particular historical context that allows for certain shifts and opportunities in news coverage of sexual assault and abuse, limitations in coverage can be traced back to earlier decades of news coverage of sexual assault and rape. Here, this article demonstrates, the centrality of the accused, his story, his words, and the effects of the accusations on his career are still at the center much of the coverage. Many stories are framed as narratives of prominent men in politics or media who are “taken down” by their accusers or by their accusations. This narrative reverses the institutional relationship that enabled the abuse of power, by focusing on the moment when the words of abuse survivors negatively impact the perpetrator. It is primarily in the first exposé in a given news source that outlines the accusations and features quotes from accusers and victims. Some of these stories specifically discuss institutional features that enable or foster abuses of power in the form of sexual abuse and harassment. However, subsequent reports often focus on the effects on the accused, the highlights of his career, effects on the institution of which he was a part, and quotes from officials from that organization. This article examines the operation of these problematic frames of news coverage that direct our attention away from the real problem at hand and serve to amplify attention on powerful men and institutions while diminishing attention given to victims and survivors. The article concludes with a set of suggestions for coverage that can facilitate continued shifts toward more meaningfully victim-centered narratives.
Literature review
A number of feminist scholars have examined both content and framing of mainstream news coverage of gendered violence including rape, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and sexual abuse. Their work has established the tendency for mainstream news in earlier decades to reinforce traditional myths about rape and sexual assault including the tendency to rely on questions of consent and victim behavior to cast doubt on accusers, and to understand rape as an act of extreme violence committed by a deranged criminal rather than as an act of coercion or abuse of power directed toward an acquaintance, date, or spouse (see Benedict, 1992; Brinson, 1989). Because survivors were doubted or even blamed for their own sexual victimization, and because sexual abusers were construed as violent strangers, cases of sexual abuse by dates and acquaintances were rarely covered in the mainstream news media, and when they were covered, the emphasis was often placed on a perceived lack of victim credibility and loss of reputation to the men accused (Benedict, 1992).
The prevalence in the news of celebrity cases of sexual abuse also contributed to a tendency to focus on a defense of the accused celebrity against the accusations of a relatively unknown victim (Boyle, 2020; Franiuk, Seefelt, & Cepress, 2008). In addition, news values favoring “balanced” coverage of events and controversies meant that most stories of rape focused on court cases and most quoted sources were identifiable as experts in relation to those legal cases (Cuklanz, 1993, 1996a, 2006, 2013). All of these factors combined to produce coverage that focused more often on the accused than the accuser, leaving very little space for women’s voices or for discussion of survivors’ experiences. Feminist voices including those of the rape reform or rape crisis realms have been largely absent from mainstream news coverage of rape and sexual assault (Moorti, 2002). The race of the accused has been understood to be an important determining factor in the framing and content of coverage, with a greater tendency to frame African American men as guilty (Dixon, Azocar & Casas, 2010; Grabe, 2000; Meyers, 1997; Moorti, 2002).
These general patterns reflect dominant ideologies surrounding gender roles and sexual assault: rape culture blames women for sexual assault and often fails to hold men accountable for their own behavior. Even in recent years leading up to the events of 2016 and 2017, scholarship on mainstream news coverage of rape and sexual assault continued to document the prevalence of many of the same tropes and limitations. The tendency to doubt the credibility of victims of date rape and abuse by anyone other than a stranger is still present in news coverage. As Sacks et al. note, “the sympathy for victims who are attacked by strangers seems to reinforce the false notion that ‘stranger rape’ is real but rape by someone the victim knows, even a family member, is not” (2018, p. 1244). Relatedly, the notion that sympathetic males, or even accomplished men could also commit sexual abuse and assault has continued to be effaced. In their work on the Steubenville case, Pennington and Birthisel note that “[i]n the reporting on the rape in Steubenville, those societal contributors to rape and rape culture were largely ignored as reporters sought to understand how promising football stars could commit such a crime” (2016, p. 2447). They further note that myths related to the believability of stranger rape have continued to retain their power. These myths continue to be based on the idea that rapists are monsters (Gregoriou & O’Hara, 2012). Similarly, victim-blaming has remained a notable feature of news coverage. In her work on Occupy Wall Street, Barefoot found that “[s]exual assault victims … were deemed as placing themselves at risk by interacting with men whom were dangerous and prone to violence,” and furthermore that “[w]omen were cast as foolish for continuing to stay in a setting that allowed violence to occur” (2016, p. 23). Finally, mainstream media have shown resistance to representing intersectional identities, and this limitation has also persisted until the present day: “[c]omplexities of identities are not represented in contemporary political, feminist, patriarchal, and hegemonic languages, resulting in erasure of multiply marginalized voices” (Battaglie, Edley, & Newsome, 2019, p. 134).
In recent years, mainstream news coverage has shifted to include acknowledgment of women’s experiences of sexual abuse. The extensive coverage of the #MeToo movement and of specific related cases of abuse since 2017 provide ample evidence of this. At this stage in our collective history, and in the history of scholarship on rape and sexual assault in mainstream news media, it is time to look specifically at the frames and content through which these cases are covered. Through such analysis we stand to gain insight not only into how much has changed in news reporting of these issues, but also into what shifts have yet to be made. The present frame analysis of news coverage does just that: it reveals remaining limitations that confirm findings of earlier research, but also points out exceptions to the typical coverage that point the way toward future improvements that move us further away from traditional rape myths. Recent attention to the fundamental problem of abuse of power is now a regular part of mainstream news coverage of #MeToo cases, but one that recedes into the background as case coverage evolves over time.
Methods
To facilitate the analysis of mainstream news for the purposes of this article, two specific news sources were examined for their treatments of two specific cases that initially made headlines in November of 2017. This article examines coverage of accusations against Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose in both The New York Times and The Washington Post. The cases were selected for their proximity to the start of the hashtag campaign by Alyssa Milano, and for their comparable fact patterns. They both involve media personalities who were subsequently removed from their positions at mainstream media organizations. The New York Times and The Washington Post were chosen as representative major print outlets known for high quality investigative journalism and fact-based reporting. The data collection of news articles on these cases from these sources was based on searches of the database NexisUni for a specific person (Rose or Lauer) along with the term “harassment.” The date range for the data collection searches were from the date of each breaking news story until the present. In the case of Charlie Rose, the first stories in both the Washington Post and The New York Times appeared on November 20 (see Barker & Gabler, 2017; Carmon & Brittain, 2017). In the case of Matt Lauer, the first stories were published on November 29 and November 30, 2017 (see Farhi, 2017; Gabler et al., 2017). Stories published by these two outlets in print and online formats were included as long as they met the other selection criteria. Duplicate stories as well as opinion/editorial pieces were eliminated.
The analysis here is based on news stories about the harassment and sexual abuse by Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer as well as the subsequent reporting on related events and stories. Search results varied depending on whether the key subject (Rose or Lauer) was found in the article’s title/headline or only in the body of the article. To be thorough, searches were conducted for both, with the following results: The Washington Post ran four articles with Matt Lauer’s name in the headline, and 62 with Lauer’s name appearing somewhere in the article. The New York Times ran 22 stories with Lauer’s name in the headline and 166 with his name mentioned somewhere in the article. In the case of Charlie Rose, The Washington Post ran 8 stories with his name in the headline and 55 mentioning him somewhere in the article. The New York Times ran 14 articles naming Rose in the headline and 172 mentioning him somewhere in the article. While the vast majority of articles mentioning Rose or Lauer only in the article body were substantially about another subject, a number of these articles contained relevant information for this analysis. In addition, these larger groups of articles provide important context for understanding the framing of issues related to Rose, Lauer, and sexual harassment claims generally.
Frame analysis was used to provide a detailed profile of the major themes found in the reporting examined. Frame analysis is often used to assess the central themes and meanings associated with key elements of news reporting, and has been theorized by several scholars (see Entman, 1991; Gitlin, 1980; Goffman, 1986; Tuchman, 1978) as influencing public opinion about how specific issues should be understood and prioritized. Burke and Mazzarella (2008) assert that in order to understand how news coverage relates to gender, “it is critical to acknowledge that news stories in general are constructed or ‘framed’” (p. 397). Frame analysis involves analyzing groups of news articles on a specific subject “to understand how . . . news outlets construct a particular way of thinking” (p. 397). As Holling (2019) notes, “[f]rames are communicated within a text by catchphrases, keywords, and metaphors that may communicate different functions, and may encourage particular interpretations or meanings of an issue” (p. 251). Frames have the power to “structure a public’s perception and understanding of social problems that should prompt action,” and “define the gravity/urgency of an exigence”(Holling, p. 253). Following a close reading of the resulting news stories from these two sources on the cases of Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer, prominent news frames were identified. Stories fitting each frame were identified and analyzed for their component inclusions and exclusions. The emphasis was on framing in relation to limitations of news coverage identified in prior research on media coverage of sexual assault and abuse. Thus, focus was placed on the ways in which news frames centered the experiences of celebrity perpetrators and marginalized the voices of victims, and also on ways in which frames were able to break away from these predictable elements with content related to structural elements such as corporate culture and abuse of power.
Reporting on these two cases was remarkably similar, in both The Washington Post and The New York Times. Victim-centered frames were largely absent. While the initial reports on the first and second day tended to feature at least some specific allegations and quotations from the women making them, subsequent coverage veered off into a range of different news frames that seldom focused on the allegations or the targets of the abusive behavior. Rather than focusing on victims and their experiences, stories after the first two days were framed as stories about the career of and effects on the accused, the effects on the organization left to deal with his dismissal and replacement, details about the individuals hired to replace the accused, and other frames such as the parameters and findings of investigations of the corporate cultures in question.
Findings
The Washington Post and New York Times coverage of allegations against Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer and events subsequent to these allegations followed similar patterns, with specifics related to allegations and abuse of power entering into stories primarily during the first two days. The analysis that follows documents the manner of reporting related to these elements as well as the deployment of new frames in subsequent follow-up coverage. The analysis demonstrates the specific details of reporting frames and the general content of those frames, showing how focus generally remained on the position and career of the accused as well as on his employer and colleagues. The analysis also shows how victim voices, though present, were once again sidelined in most of the coverage. Factors that might contribute to the support of victims, such as discussions of corporate culture and details related to the abuse of power were rarely included.
Problematic frame 1: the accused and his loss of position
Historically, mainstream US news coverage of sexual assault and rape cases has tended to marginalize the voices of women and other victims of these crimes while foregrounding instead the words and opinions of institutional representatives such as the police, attorneys, and courts. There has been a tendency to frame these cases through the lens of the accused, with a focus on the effects of an assault accusation and/or trial on his reputation and career. These elements have been linked to the idea that perpetrators are terrible strangers rather than sympathetic friends, colleagues, and relatives. The more the coverage focuses on what abusers have to lose, the less sympathetic we are likely to be with victim experiences. Coverage organized through frames that privilege the position of the accused that tell the story from that point of view are quite commonly found in news in the #MeToo era. This frame focuses on the individual(s) who are accused, their personal career and positions held, and the costs to the accused that follow from the allegations. Even if the alleged behavior is not denied in such articles, the focus is often on how much it will cost the accused, measured frequently by the distance of the fall from lofty position of power and respect. These frames direct our attention away from what happened and the terms in which it has been described by the targets of problematic and illegal behavior. Instead of helping us to examine and understand the operation of power in the perpetration of sexualized harassment and abuse and the cost to victims of such actions, these stories focus our attention primarily on the cost to the accused once the behavior has been made public.
A prime example, a November 29 New York Times (Gabler et al., 2017) story about accusations against Matt Lauer in the context of other #MeToo cases, illustrates framing and content of the story as first and foremost about the fall of a famous man, and even goes so far as to contextualize the story in terms of other similar fates of other famous men:
News of Mr. Lauer’s sudden downfall shook the television world, where he had established himself as one of the most powerful men in his industry …
Mr. Lauer, 59, joins an ignominious group of media figures felled by the recent spate of harassment claims, including the studio mogul Harvey Weinstein, the comedian Louis C.K., the CBS host Charlie Rose and the political journalist Mark Halperin
On its first page, this article focuses on Lauer as “one of the most powerful men in his industry” who was “felled” in a way that “shook the television world.” Not until the second page does it outline some of the conduct in question, nor does it summarize or outline the accusations against the comparison cases of Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., Charlie Rose or Mark Halperin. The news is not about the problematic actions of these men, the experiences of the women they abused, or the troubling workplace dynamics they created.
An online New York Times story titled “Matt Lauer’s History at ‘Today’: Two Decades of Highs and Lows” is peppered with embedded links to Youtube and other videos of highlights from Lauer’s career. Although the departure of Ann Curry and interviews with Bill O’Reilly were included as “low” points, other events include Lauer’s coverage of the events of 9/11 and an interview with Tom Cruise. The article quotes (1994) executive producer of Today Jeff Zucker in his 1994 statement upon hiring Lauer that he was “the hunk next door,” to whom women were (thankfully for NBC) attracted. Although the article highlights some of the moments that seemed awkward or open to re-interpretation in the context of the new allegations, these linkages were not made explicit, and the allegations are not named (Haag, 2017).
A parallel story published on November 30, 2017 by The Washington Post emphasizes that Lauer was “may be the best-known, and perhaps best-liked, of three men whose highflying careers have crashed in the wake of accusations…” (Farhi). This story also emphasizes the fact that “[t]he number of prominent men brought down by allegations of sexual misconduct has snowballed since revelations about Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein were reported in early October.” Additional stories in this frame focused on the reaction of fans (Abrams, 2017).
Although the anonymity of accusers could be one reason for the lack of focus on victims and their experiences, this factor alone cannot explain the persistent focus on the perpetrator and the cost of sexual abuse to him. Language that emphasizes the “crash” of a career or the “snowballing” of stories of sexual abuse in the worlds media and politics focus our attention on costs to the accused and the affiliated organizations. They do not help us understand what happened, how it took place, how it was perpetuated and supported, or who was complicit in the abusive behavior.
Probelmatic frame 2: costs to the organization
Beyond coverage framed as a story about a prominent man losing his power and position, both sources published multiple stories focusing on the NBC and CBS/PBS, the media organizations where Lauer and Rose had (respectively) been employed. Stories in this vein had a range of specific frames that fit into the general frame of “Costs to the Organization,” including stories about the gap left by the departure of Rose/Lauer, stories about the hiring of their replacements, and stories about their fortunes in a larger context such as The Washington Post’s “A cloudy morning after for “Today” (Yahr, 2017) and several articles in both news outlets focusing on the reactions of direct onair colleagues of Rose or Lauer. For example, in the case of Charlie Rose, a New York Times article extensively quoted colleague Gayle King and even quoted her words “I am still reeling” in its headline (Grynbaum, 2017).
In addition to focusing on the organization and all of the ancillary issues related to the case, this problematic frame is characterized by the inclusion of quotes from representatives of the organization of which the accused is a part. These include officials providing sanitized statements to the press as well as colleagues depicted as grappling with the emotional challenges of the situation. In many stories this occurred even when there were no direct quotes at all from accusers. For example, Grynbaum’s article of November 21, 2017 quoted CBS President David Rhodes, co-host Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell, and colleague Brianna Golodryga. The New York Times also ran a similar story entitled “CNN’s Jeff Zucker says he knew of no misconduct by Matt Lauer” (Abrams, 2017). Zucker had been the executive producer of “Today” during the time of the alleged conduct by Lauer that led up to his firing. The story quoted Zucker directly: “[n]o one ever brought to me, or to my knowledge, there was never, there was never a complaint about Matt … [t]here was never a suggestion of that kind of deviant, predatory behavior. Not even a whisper of it, nothing like that” (Abrams). Additional stories focused on efforts at NBC to “control the damage” (which quoted Andrew Lack), or the defensive position of NBC executives in relation to their handling of the Lauer case. Both The Washington Post and The New York Times reported criticisms of NBC’s decision to conduct its own internal investigation of the events, as well as of the actual report produced by the internal investigation (for example, The Washington Post’s “NBC faces skepticism on harassment reforms, Ellison, 2018). While in some ways critical of the decisions of NBC, the larger point here is that all of these stories fit into framing that focused on the organization as the center of the narrative. In these stories, victims were seldom quoted and specific allegations were seldom named.
Coverage in the organizational costs frame tends generally to omit discussion of the actual allegations, instead providing vague language such as “violated company standards,” “hostile environment,” “misconduct” or “inappropriate workplace conduct.” These stories do not provide information on the abuse of power involved in the actions in question, and they do not discuss operations of power in any description of the way in which the abuse was (alleged to have been) perpetrated. Some stories balanced a focus on the organization with some analysis of how corporate culture (or a specific corporate culture), contributes to sexual harassment. Many stories on “cultures that give rise to” or “enable” harassers, however, were brief and provided little sense of the actual structures in place or how they contributed to abuse. More extreme frames focused instead on the “chilling effect” of the context of sexual harassment claims, emphasizing the fear felt by male workers or panic in HR departments.
Additional problematic frames
Most of the story framing in coverage of the cases of Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer focused in some way on the accused or the organization. This was true even for outlier stories with angles related to a comparison of the consequences for politicians versus media personalities and executives. These stories, published in both sources, compared different cases and the effects on the careers of the accused. Some stories focused on organizations in a more positive way, focusing on improvements or looking ahead to a brighter future instead of framing the issue in terms of “costs” to the organization, its employees, or its HR department. Stories about the replacement of David Rhodes by Susan Zirinsky at CBS (see Que) or the replacement of Don Nash by Libby Leist (see Koblin, 1/17/18) at NBC fit this frame. While these stories mentioned Rose or Lauer, it was only in the larger context of other problems and accusations related to other figures within their respective organizations. Neither The Washington Post nor The New York Times went far afield in their framing of these cases, with nearly all of the published stories focusing on the accused or his organization in one way or another.
Findings: victim-centered elements
Although none of the collected new stories approached the subject through a victim-centered frame, some did include elements that briefly provided details from the victim’s point of view. These articles focus on the words of accusers, detail the amount and type of evidence available, and describe the words and behaviors in question. Instead of simply noting that there was inappropriate conduct, such articles detail the alleged conduct and specify how and why it is inappropriate. None of the collected articles included details about the effects on the victim(s) and how they had coped with their experiences, although some included details on how female co-hosts and other colleagues were dealing with the revelations and with their loss of a valued colleague. These frames are not at all the same victim-centered stories.
Detailing the allegations, quoting victims, describing abuses of power
One important limitation of the coverage of cases in the current era is that these sympathetic articles are more likely found when a story first breaks. Although even these stories were not reported from the point of view of the accuser, they nonetheless did tend to include the victim-centered elements of detailing the allegations in question, quoting victims, and describing abuses of power. Subsequent discussions tend to move away from the accusations and into the response. This quick shift in the news cycle from details-of-accusation to “aftermath” or “effects” focused coverage is one important reason why news focus on the accuser is more common than focus on the accused and the allegations at hand.
Initial stories about the claims against Charlie Rose on November 20, 2017 did include details of the allegations. Carmon and Brittain of The Washington Post detailed a large number of accusations with specific details, and explained how the unusual corporate culture helped to enable a problematic dynamic between Rose and those who worked for him. Anonymously citing an accuser, the authors noted that “The show’s small, informal structure, with roughly 15 employees, and the centrality of Rose’s authority on a program he owns led to uncertainty over how to respond.” After vaguely referencing “crude sexual advances toward multiple women who worked on his show,” The New York Times story included details from three of the eight claimants, noting specifically the claim that Rose “walked around naked in front of them and groped them … made unwanted advances toward them, trying to kiss them without their permission” (Barker and Gabler). Citing a specific witness by name, the article further noted that she “said he repeatedly called her to describe his fantasies of her swimming naked in the … pool as he watched” (Barker and Gabler). Significantly, the article also took the unusual step of including comments describing the work environment at Rose’s company in terms that helped explain the facilitation of Rose’s abuse of his power. The article describes a “hostile work environment, with no human-resources department and Mr. Rose basically running his own fief,” concluding that “employees had little recourse if they had problems,” and noting that Rose had previously settled a class-action lawsuit filed by former interns who objected to the common practice through which he “got rid of many of the senior staff members … instead hiring interns as staff members and then recruiting new interns” (Barker and Gabler). These details revealed a pattern of retaining a vast power differential between Rose himself and his employees, combined with an organizational structure with no channels for complaints or resolutions to problems. Unfortunately, these details were not covered in any other New York Times articles on the Rose case. Even an article published the next day in the Business section had already whittled the allegations down to a mention of “extremely disturbing and intolerable behavior” and “crude sexual advances” (Koblin & Grynbaum, 2017). Specific allegations were not described again until three of the victims sued Rose in May, 2018 (see Brittain & Carmon, 2018; Koblin, 2018a).
In the initial absence of an identifiable on-the-record accuser for initial reports on the Lauer case, both The New York Times and The Washington Post quoted NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack’s communication with company colleagues, to the effect that “we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer. It represented … a clear violation of our company’s standards … we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident” (“Transcript … ,” 2017; Farhi, 2017).
Both of these initial stories also provide some discussion of the allegations. After noting that “Lack provided few details about Lauer’s accuser or the nature of her allegation”, Farhi of The Washington Post cites details from a Variety story published after Lauer’s firing, noting several specific allegations. Lauer was said to have had a button under his desk that could lock the door remotely. Farhi notes that the Variety article also alleged that Lauer “once gave a colleague a sex toy” with “an explicit note about how he wanted to use it on her” (Farhi, 2017). The article further states that Lauer was alleged to have exposed himself to a colleague and then “reprimanded her for not engaging in a sexual act.” Yet, after including these specifics, the same article goes on to quote Lauer’s colleagues Savannah Guthrie and Al Roker in addition to Andrew Lack. These inclusions emphasize the emotional reaction of colleagues. The article concludes with details about Lauer’s career including the idea that “Lauer has been as much the face of ‘Today’ as anyone in its 66 years on the air.” One story in The New York Times included rape allegations as well as discussion of a corporate culture where “[j]okes about women’s appearances were routine … colleagues play[ed] a crude game in which they chose which female guests or staff members they would prefer to marry, kill or have sex with” (Gabler et al., 2017). Such details about corporate culture and detailed accusations add credibility to the accuser’s words, providing some context for understanding how such acts could have taken place and/or gone unchecked. They begin to specify the underlying attitudes, behaviors, policies, and problems that enable perpetration of sexual misconduct and abuse.
Beyond its initial expose on the breaking news of Lauer’s dismissal, The Washington Post seldom mentioned the allegations against him. A notable exception occurred months later, in an April 27, 2018 article by Sarah Ellison. Entitled “NBC faces skepticism on harassment reforms,” the article’s main content is about Ann Curry’s claims that she received a complaint from a female colleague in 2012 and passed it on to NBC management. The article quotes Soledad O’Brien, who noted that “I don’t think that people who were victims would feel particularly supported by going to someone for help, whether that person was in HR or that person was a colleague.” In this context, the allegation that Lauer gave a colleague a sex toy is repeated, and previously unreported allegations against Lauer are briefly mentioned: “powerful men such as Lauer were known to pursue sexual relationships with more junior women … [o]ne woman said that the anchor exposed himself in his office and asked her to touch him, and a second said he had sex with her in the middle of the day in his office.” The story is critical of NBC’s handling of the allegations and investigation of its own corporate culture, noting that Andrew Lack had provided an explanation of the swift action he had taken in firing Lauer, by explaining that Lauer had begun an improper relationships with a colleague during the Sochi Olympics in 2014, and that it constituted “an offense that went on for months.” Although a follow-up article on NBC’s internal investigation and related skepticism about a whitewash does not include any of the allegations against Lauer (Sullivan, 2018), an article about the October, 2019 publication of Catch and Kill includes details of the rape allegation by Brooke Nevils that is published in Farrow’s book (Butler, 2019). The New York Times coverage is substantially similar and does not include additional stories detailing the specific allegations against Lauer.
To summarize, victim-centered specifics can be found in some of the articles in both sources, but primarily in stories that first broke the news. These elements included quoting victims and describing their specific allegations. After these initial stories, it was more likely that allegations would be reduced to catch phrases such as “crude comments” or “inappropriate behavior,” without giving readers a clear sense of what was being referenced. Discussions of abuse of power in coverage by The New York Times and The Washington Post of the Lauer and Rose cases is even more rare than the inclusion of specific allegations against them. While there is some discussion of the corporate structures of Charlie Rose’s company suggesting that specific elements might have enabled the perpetration of the sorts of behaviors alleged, overt discussions of abuse of power per se are absent until the publication of Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill (2019). At this point, The Washington Post summarizes Farrow’s findings, noting that “Farrow writes that NBC covered up multiple allegations against Lauer stretching back years by paying his accusers and ensuring their silences through nondisclosure agreements” (Farhi, 2019). Without the publication of Farrow’s book as the newsworthy event triggering discussion of these details (as well as providing them), these news outlets had moved on from any discussion of accusations against Rose and Lauer without more than passing descriptions of some elements of corporate culture that might have enabled such behavior.
Abuse of power, although at the heart of the two cases analyzed here, appears to be among the rarest of news frames. In the context of the 2016 election and the revelations of Trump’s failure to understand sexual assault as an offense, affront, attack, or crime against another person, there are signs of change in the way we are able to accept a victim’s point of view. #MeToo coverage treats sexual assault and harassment as important, yet it has not found a formula that can make abuse of power the central subject. Rather, the powerful still control the narrative, and the story is still told from their point of view.
Discussion: suggestions for improved future coverage
News frames are important. They signal which aspects of a story are most significant by highlighting particular elements of the story for our attention. They grant legitimacy to a particular point of view through the selection of individuals to quote, what details are provided, and how seriously the allegations are treated. Today we do find a certain number of news reports that take accusers at their word, and these sometimes model what it means to listen and support victims. Unfortunately, within many of the same stories that include some of these elements, it is still much more likely that corporate spokespersons and executives will be quoted, and that their words will tend toward minimizing details related to allegations and problematic actions, and toward exoneration of the organization if not the accused individual. Many other stories quote only corporate spokespersons. We are still in the process of learning the extent, degree, and range of inappropriate, abusive, and illegal behaviors that have taken place in professional and other settings. We are just starting to have conversations about best practices, professionalism, and the effects of these abuses on their targets. Now we see an opportunity for workplaces to clarify their principles and create new policies, setting a higher bar for professional conduct and encouraging those targeted to tell their stories to anyone who will listen. The bottom line is that readers have been shocked to learn of the types of behaviors, abuses of power, and harassing or assaultive environments that have not only been created, but allowed to continue unabated. News stories could do more to provide readers with a clearer sense of what constitutes abuse of power, what elements of corporate structure serve to enable and foster it, how far organizations have gone to protect themselves from the revelation of the truth in such cases, and specifically how corporate culture can be structured to work against such abuses of power in the future.
There are a number of measures that news organizations have been able to implement on a limited basis in coverage of #MeToo. For news coverage to avoid contributing to the problems of abuse, it will be important to keep these elements present in future coverage. These features can be articulated as four interrelated elements of responsible news coverage. First, it is important to describe the actual allegations and related evidence specifically, rather than refer vaguely or euphemistically to “inappropriate behavior” or “workplace conduct.” When elements that establish or contribute to the credibility of the claim are detailed, a story can contribute to the sense that claims are not simply words, but that they are also anchored in real world events and relationships. Elements such as corroborating evidence, prior accusations, common fact patterns in multiple accusations, and specific details of locations, events, dates, and persons present can contribute to the credibility of claims. These elements should be included in all stories about a particular case involving allegations against a specific individual, including follow-up stories that discuss reactions within his organization, moves to cope with his absence and find a replacement, and so forth. Without these details, the story is vulnerable to manipulation as it shifts quickly into a story about negative effects on a company or institution rather than about actions perpetrated by specific individuals that were enabled by that organization and that harmed other specific individuals.
Second, news stories should include the words of the survivor(s) where possible. If victims wish to remain anonymous, explanations of why victims prefer anonymity, such as fear of retribution or negative career impact can be mentioned, as they were in some of the reporting in these two cases. A second option is to quote a proxy or representative of the survivor. These elements are particularly important in stories where attorneys, fans, employers, issue specific advocates, and coworkers of the accused are quoted. In the database of articles collected for this research, proxy voices for victims were largely absent. Instead, comments from official corporate spokespersons were included, many focusing on their feelings about the loss of the colleague who had committed the abuse. Third, it is important to connect the allegations to a sense of the wrongdoing in the particular context at hand. Power imbalances should be specifically outlined. Naming and describing the elements of organizational structure and abuse of power in workplace or interpersonal settings can contribute to public understanding of why a particular action is wrong and how it affects the target(s) of that behavior. They can further help foster an understanding of why targeted individuals do not come forward with complaints. This, in turn, can mitigate against our well-documented tendency to doubt the words of those making claims of sexual assault and abuse and our similar tendency to believe that victims contributed to their own victimization. These elements can be accomplished while maintaining a clear sense of whether or not the allegations have been corroborated, proven, or repeated by others. If the alleged behavior breaks the law, it is important to restate the law and how it might apply to the apparent fact pattern at hand. Quotes that focus on the survivor’s experiences after the abuse could help to point out the ways in which power imbalances influence behavior before, during, and after an abusive encounter.
Finally, stories that report on workplace abuses can provide useful information for readers by discussing best practices of professional conduct as well as when behaviors start to become borderline. It is encouraging that in the wake of recent allegations in the entertainment industry, a number of organizations are adopting codes of conduct and best practices. High quality news coverage can help raise the level of public awareness about how to avoid behavior that is uncomfortable to others, unethical, or even illegal. Discussions of best practices can be included by means of contrast to an existing corporate culture that has experienced abuses or allegations of abuse.
Conclusion
Mainstream US news coverage of #MeToo has shown great potential for increased coverage that does not mimic much of the earlier coverage of rape and sexual assault cases, which tended to blame the victim and focus on the potential damage to the accused. Along with a history of news coverage of abuses of power in the form of sexual abuse and harassment over the past decades, the election of Donald Trump in 2016 after the release of an Access Hollywood tape in which he detailed his own attitude of pride and impunity in relation to sexual assault have contributed to a new environment in which accusations of abuse and harassment are treated as credible rather than with suspicion or scorn. However, although the #MeToo movement shows that social attitudes about sexual assault are shifting, and although news coverage has likewise shifted toward granting credence to accusers, there is still room for continued change in the direction of taking up the victim’s point of view in news frames. This analysis of news frames in contemporary #MeToo coverage from two respected news sources on two high-profile cases illustrates how news framing still tends to bolster the point of view of the accused and his organization rather than providing a clear picture of the victim’s point of view. While early stories focused on specific allegations and even provided some details about corporate structures and practices that enabled or fostered these abuses of power, subsequent stories on the same cases focused more often on a corporate point of view that emphasized the perpetrator’s value, and the damage to the institution of which he was a part. Coverage that openly discusses the nature and meaning of abuses of power, describes behaviors and supporting evidence, and directly quotes the survivor or an advocate can facilitate a more open and meaningful conversation about workplace sexual abuse and harassment. Some news stories have been able to provide examples of these important elements, while many have simply followed standard frames from earlier eras of news coverage.
In some ways, this is a tall order. Several factors mitigate against the simple focus on victims and their experiences of sexual assault and harassment. Victims often wish to remain anonymous, may not wish to be quoted, or may stand alone in their point of view related to corporate culture. In the two cases under examination here, news organizations themselves came under scrutiny for the abusive treatment endured by female colleagues and coworkers. Reporters are committed to provide a balanced form of coverage that will take different vantage points into account. However, in these stories that are fundamentally about imbalances of power, it is even more imperative that we remain attentive to the practices and structures that create and maintain power imbalances, and that we endeavor to make them visible so that real change is possible. Otherwise, in re-telling the story of sexual assault we too often reprise the same power imbalance that enabled the abuse in the first place. #MeToo offers a context in which to write a new story and try to redress power imbalances. While some stories about abuse of colleagues by famous men have started to do so, there remains much room for change as we try to understand and fight against systemic sexual assault and abuse. Although the election of Donald Trump in spite of the release of the Access Hollywood tape can tend to foster an acceptance of unethical and abusive behaviors of the powerful, it also underscores the logical conclusion of the flawed premises that we have accepted for too long. Having elected a president who at one time boasted about his ability to assault women with impunity, we have come to the stark realization that doubting victims and feeling sorry for abusers is not a sufficient strategy for change. We have found the possibility of believing women’s stories about abuse. We have yet to examine the reasons why these experiences recur and to write new stories that work to eliminate them.