When the verdict for the Steubenville rape case came out that the two football players were guilty of sexual assault, as well as distribution of child pornography, the sentiment conveyed by CNN reporters Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow was one of sympathy—for the defendants.
The two reporters lamented on how two promising football stars had their lives ruined. When defendant Malik Richmond wept in court during an apology to the victim, the reporters expressed their sorrow for the young man who had his whole life ahead of him.
“What’s the lasting effect that will happen to these boys who are convicted of rape?” Crowley asked a CNN legal analyst. Nowhere in the segment was there a question of the lasting impact on the victim of the rape.
The outrage at this sympathy caused an explosion on the internet, with many people and petitions calling to boycott CNN. One petition on Change.org has garnered a million signatures. Other critics have also accused news sources such as USA Today and ABC News of garnering the same sympathy for the defendants rather than the person who was raped and humiliated on Twitter. I could write about this petition and the media’s coverage on the trial. Sure, the coverage is disheartening but not surprising, given that sensational coverage of someone’s downfall is typical in the media. But as I was looking through many different articles on CNN’s Steubenville coverage I found something that I felt should also be brought to attention.
Meagan Carpentier of The Guardian is one of the many advocates offended by Crowley and Harlow’s deep care for the convicted sex offenders. Halfway through her article she mentioned a subject more worth apathy from the media.
“They don’t assign deeper motivations to the tears of men and women who must now contend with the most openly broken part of the American criminal justice system – incarceration,” Carpentier proposed, suggesting that the media should focus more on that issue. Carpentier continued, “to which around 2.2 million Americans are currently consigned [at 730 prisoners per 100,000 citizens, the highest rate of imprisonment in the world] and which is widely recognized as minimally rehabilitative and maximally punitive.”
Where is the sympathy for the victims of the prison industrial complex? In a report put out last September by the U.S. Government Accountability, it showed between the years of 2006 and 2011, the already enormous prison population ballooned from 36 percent to 39 percent with 2011 being the most overcrowded year, at a rate of 55 percent. Forty-eight percent of the males of those 55 percent were sentenced for drug offenses. The percentage is expected to exceed to 45 percent through 2018. Shouldn’t such a mind blowing statistic be reported more in the media? Or where is the sympathy for those kids whose lives are ruined by drug laws? If a teenager is also found in possession of illegal drugs, like marijuana, he can be denied federal aid for college. In 2006, a report was put out that 1 in every 400 students who applied for financial aid was turned away due to drug convictions under the 1996 Higher Education Act. Marquette School currently states that students will lose federal grants and work study even in enrollment if convicted of possession of illegal drugs.
This piece is not encouraging anyone to break the law or excusing it. But, in my opinion, I believe that sympathy for a poor teenager who has been denied federal aid for college due to a drug conviction is much more justified than sympathy for two kids who took advantage of someone when they were drunk. If only Crowley and Harlow felt the same.
Brian Rabadeau can be contacted at
brabadeau@keene-equinox.com