Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Newsbeat, fairness and myths

Posted: 19 Mar 2013 09:00 AM PDT

athena, bbc newsbeat, cps false rape allegations, Rape Crisis, EVAW

Guest post from Rape Crisis and EVAW.

Women's organisations sent the following complaint to the BBC about the BBC Newsbeat shocking coverage of a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) report released recently.

The Newsbeat story headline was 'False rape claims ‘devastating’ say wrongly accused'.

The next line of text ran: Two people a month are being prosecuted for making false allegations of rape and wasting police time, new figures show.

It then initially ran the sentence 'It’s the first time details for England and Wales have been compiled, showing how common the problem is'.

It has a subheading 'Criminal record' and says 'the claim remains on their criminal record until they apply to get it removed'; allegations remain on a 'police file', which is not the same thing as a criminal record.

By late afternoon on 13 March 'common' had been changed to 'unusual'.

Rape Crisis and the End Violence Against Women coalition (EVAW) received a response from Newsbeat which is included below, and their response to that is below too.

The initial letter, dated 13 March 2013, runs:

Dear BBC Heads of News,

We are writing to complain about the BBC Newsbeat report on today's (13 March) CPS report on false allegations of rape and domestic violence.

We represent more than 60 specialist organisations working to end violence against women and girls in all its forms, and a national network of Rape Crisis centres who work directly with survivors of sexual violence.

The news report by Declan Harvey and Anisa Subedar, which at time of writing is still on the Newsbeat website and the main BBC news website, is an appalling misrepresentation of the CPS report and fails to reach very basic standards of good journalism.

It comprehensively misrepresents the findings of the new CPS report, which is particularly disturbing as Newsbeat is a news outlet for younger people and young women are subject to particularly high rates of sexual violence – victims considering whether or not to report will be among your readers and listeners.

The BBC report says in its first paragraph the figures on false allegations "…show how common the problem is…" which is precisely what the CPS report (and DPP Keir Starmer when interviewed on the Today Programme this morning) do not say.

In commenting on the report Keir Starmer says, "This report shows that false allegations of rape and domestic violence are very rare… From the cases we have analysed, the indication is that it is therefore extremely rare that a suspect deliberately makes a false allegation of rape or domestic violence purely out of malice.

“It is within this context that the issue should be viewed, so that myths and stereotypes around these cases are not able to take hold."

The BBC report says that some have called for anonymity for those accused of sexual offences but says the government has ruled this out – but it fails to say why the government ruled this out, which is in fact that a consideration of the proposal in 2010 found "insufficient reliable empirical evidence" on which to base such a change (House of Commons Library Note, February 2012).

Your reporters meanwhile go on to include a case study of a woman prosecuted for a false allegation, "…jailed for two years after accusing three men of raping her. Police say she made the claim because she was embarrassed she’d slept with them in one night."

Whereas the CPS report finds that in a large proportion of cases of false allegations, "…a significant number of these cases involved young, often vulnerable people, and sometimes even children.

“Around half of the cases involved people aged 21 and under, and some involved people with mental health difficulties."

Your reporters' choice and description of this case study instead reinforces a dangerous myth about rape – that women make it up after regretting consensual sex.

The evidence conclusively does not show this.

The fact is that the majority of actual rapes go unreported – not least due to the perpetuation of myths about rape and women's and girls' fears that they will not be believed.

Your reporters go on to make a point about allegations staying on a police record for some months, but again, like the anonymity point above, they fail to say why this is.

Allegations remain on a police file, which is not a criminal record and does not show up in record checks (also not clarified), because in the past when allegations have been made against men like Ian Huntley and Jimmy Savile among others, police officers handling further separate allegations were unable to find this information and potentially detect a pattern.

Your news reporting does BBC journalistic standards a great disservice – it reads as if the reporters read the CPS press release quickly and arbitrarily chose what story they felt like writing, disregarding the actual findings of an authoritative report which is part of ongoing CPS work to improve convictions rates for rape and other forms of violence against women.

The BBC is still under a spotlight for its failings with regard to Jimmy Savile and a culture of sexism and sexual harassment, and not least the editorial decisions that were made at Newsnight when evidence based on testimony from "just the women" (Peter Rippon) was dismissed as inadequate.

We hope that all your news staff are receiving comprehensive training on myths around abuse of women and girls and also how the media's perpetuation of rape myths is believed to contribute to low reporting rates (Alison Saunders, CPS).

A joint report by several of the signatories of this letter published last November, 'Just the Women', highlights with examples how poor news reporting on abuse of women and girls contributes to a climate of victims not being believed and not getting justice – it is available on all our websites.

We want to see your news article comprehensively amended or removed soon.

We hope the reporters and editor concerned will receive some training on myths and facts about violence against women and girls.

We look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely, End Violence Against Women Coalition; Rape Crisis England & Wales; Eaves; Equality Now; Object.

This is the response which came from Newsbeat's duty editor on the afternoon of 13 March 2013:

'Thank you for your feedback regarding the Newsbeat story on false rape allegations.

This was a story commissioned to specifically examine what it was like to be falsely accused of rape.

To help contextualise the story we reported on a 17 month study carried out by the Crown Prosecution Service which set out to establish how common such false rape allegations were.

In the past we have published many stories highlighting the issues surrounding rape and domestic violence, specifically targeted at our core audience of 15 to 24 year olds.

Please find links for two such stories below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17230648

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17238674

On this occasion we chose to look at those young people who are occasionally wrongly accused.

I do not agree we misrepresented the study, or published an article that might somehow put people off reporting such serious crimes.

In the fourth line of our story we quote the Director of Public Prosecutions Kier Starmer who says false rape allegations are 'serious but rare'.

In the accompanying video he makes the same statement within the first fifty seconds.

Whilst our story hears from a young man who says he was wrongly accused, we ensure that rape victims are given a voice by running quotes from Dianne Whitfield from Rape Crisis.

We also feature a video which contains a Nottinghamshire Police spokeswoman who says their starting point is always to believe allegations of serious sexual assault.

She goes on to explain how thoroughly they investigate both sides of any allegation.

Far from downplaying the seriousness of rape we finish our article by publishing the phone numbers of advice lines for people who believe they may have been the victim of rape or domestic violence.

On the day this story was broadcast we received a big response from our young audience, and we openly invited feedback on this challenging topic.

Whilst some people did say our reporting of false accusations was damaging to real rape victims, on our facebook page Gina described false accusations as "disgusting", and Stuart told us that he felt the bigger problem was that these claims make life harder for real rape victims to be taken seriously.

On Twitter Rick told us “Allegations of rape not only waste police time but wreck the lives of those accused! And John wrote on Twitter… “My 23 year old nephew was recently accused of rape. He then killed himself. The girl did it again to another guy.”

I'm sure you appreciate the BBC is here to report both sides of a story.'

The reply to this email, from Holly Dustin, was as follows:

'I find your reply inadequate.

I could write at greater length, and may do so later, but I must dispute you on a basic point of news and journalistic practice here – you say you commissioned the story to examine what it’s like to be falsely accused.

That’s all very well for a feature or for broader current affairs etc etc. Choose your date.

But – the NEWS story today was the CPS report, an authoritative report which you have systematically misrepresented.

You can’t take an important report like this and then decide that you want to shoehorn a very different story into it.

Have you read the CPS report and listened to Keir Starmer’s interviews today?

He says every time that this report is part of long-term CPS work to improve prosecutions for rape, and that part of this is about exposing myths including that false allegations are common.

You have written up the CPS report on the day it was published by using these very myths – such as in the case study and your top para statement that false allegations are “common”. That is emphatically not what the report finds.

It is also not ‘balance’ to simply include a short Rape Crisis quote and phone number.

The quotes from your listeners below in fact show that you have succeeded in inflaming the view that false allegations are common and need addressing.

Keir Starmer said today that in fact the report finds there is no need to change current guidance on dealing with them.

If you are a news programme you report on the news – you do not choose from the ‘news’ like it is a convenient menu for you to “contextualise the story”.

Today’s news was fairly straightforward.

I did not imagine a BBC newsroom worked on the basis of sitting waiting for half-matching hooks to tell a story it decided long ago it wanted to tell.’

As of today there has been no further response from the BBC. You can support us and complain online by clicking here. or ad a comment to Newsbeat’s facebook page.

Exposing the false rape claim myth

Posted: 19 Mar 2013 07:00 AM PDT

gavelFalse rape allegations really aren’t that common.

Belief that ‘most claims of rape are false’ is a myth that organisations like Rape Crisis and End Violence Against Women have long been campaigning to dispel.

But false rape allegations really aren’t that common.

Given the malestream media fixation with the issue, you could be forgiven for believing that false rape allegations are a widespread problem and our courts are ridden with prosecutions against those that have made them.

However, a report released by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) last week has found that there are a mere two people prosecuted for this crime each month.

Two people a month.

Compare this with the 332 prosecutions that are secured against rapists each month and the pervasiveness, or lack thereof, of the problem is put in some sort of perspective.

In his foreword to the report, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer said: “Victims of rape and domestic violence must not be deterred from reporting the abuse they have suffered.

“In recent years we have worked hard to dispel the damaging myths and stereotypes that are associated with these cases.

“One such misplaced belief is that false allegations of rape and domestic violence are rife.

“This report presents a more accurate picture.”

The report, which examined a 17-month period over 2011 and 2012, revealed that while there were 5,651 prosecutions for rape during that time, there were only 35 prosecutions for making a false allegation of rape.

Of those few false allegations that were made, approximately half involved young people aged 21 and under, while others involved people with mental health issues.

Indeed, scrutiny of the case studies of those included in the report reveals them to be vulnerable individuals coping with complex social and emotional issues, such as alcoholism, homelessness, and coming to grips with their sexuality.

Don’t get me wrong, this vulnerability is not an excuse for their actions.

But let’s be honest, this representation of someone who falsely accuses someone else of rape stands in stark contrast to the image of the conniving fantasists that the media would have us believe are making false accusations – and a mockery of a heinous crimes.

Another important discovery revealed in this report is that victims are often targeted by other rapists and abusers once they have been subjected to an assault – perhaps because they are more vulnerable.

This means that individuals who claim to have been a victim of more than one rape or other violence should not be discounted or viewed with suspicion.

In fact the opposite is true.

Based on data released by the Ministry of Justice in January, it is estimated that there were approximately 97,000 serious sexual assaults or rapes in the UK in the previous 12 months.

Police records, however, show that only 16,000 rapes were reported for that same period.

So if the number of actual rapes far outnumbers the number of people who are convicted for rape, surely it makes sense that accusations of false rape must far outnumber those who are convicted for making a false allegation?

As feminist blogger glosswatch rightly points out, this rationale is flawed.

Not only is a false rape allegation, exactly because it is an allegation, investigated by the authorities in a way that an unreported rape is not.

But, as glosswatch highlights, “we see broad cultural trends of rape apologism – from UniLAD to George Galloway to rape jokes on T-shirts – reaching out to the minds of investigators and juries, we’ve never yet seen an equivalent level of sympathy and amusement regarding false rape claims.”

Indeed, so entrenched is the culture of rape apologism that even media coverage of the recent CPS report by one apparently impartial news provider was unbelievably disingenuous.

Rather than highlighting the small number of false rape allegations recorded by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), an article in the BBC’s Newsbeat only encouraged victim-blaming paranoia.

Newsbeat lead with a piece entitled ‘False rape allegations ‘devastating”.

It is just this kind of mythologising of false rape claims that Keir Starmer is trying to wipe out.

He told the Guardian: “Because people recognise the devastating effect of false allegations and because they perceive there to be more false allegations than this report would suggest there are, arguably they adopt a cautious approach.

“If [that] leads to a more rigorous test being applied when people report rape or domestic violence, then that can lead to injustice for victims.”

And it is not just in the reporting of a rape, but in every stage of the legal process that victims of rape seem to face a ‘more rigorous test’.

It has emerged that police at a specialist unit for handling sexual assaults put pressure on victims to drop claims in order to aid clean up rates.

And Frances Andrade, who killed herself after giving evidence against her childhood abuser, was labelled a “fantasist” who was “largely living in a fantasy life” by his defence lawyers and left her feeling as though she was the one on trial.

Sadly, I suspect that Frances Andrade’s experience is familiar to many of those who have pursued convictions against their accusers and I fear that for as long as a culture of rape apologism is tolerated, it will continue to be so.

So we won’t tolerate it.

On Steubenville and ‘ruining promising lives’

Posted: 19 Mar 2013 02:30 AM PDT

Steubenville178_zpscc9eb31cFrom Glosswatch.

‘It was incredibly emotional — incredibly difficult even for an outsider like me to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believe their life fell apart.’ CNN reporter Poppy Harlow on witnessing the Steubenville verdict.

Like most women, I live in fear of ruining promising lives. The trouble is, it's so easy to do. We can even do it in our sleep. It doesn't matter what we wear, where we go, whom we're with, whether we're drunk or sober – any one of us could end up ruining a promising life. It could even be the life of a friend or partner (obviously some lives are less promising than others, but as women we don't get to choose).

In the olden, pre-Steubenville days, ruining promising lives used to be known as being a rape survivor who secured a conviction. Nowadays we've moved beyond such euphemistic language. We know that going to prison is bad. Indeed, people convicted of rape might have to experience their lives falling apart! That's not very nice, is it? Especially if they're young and good at stuff (stuff other than being woman-hating rapists).

The thing is though – and I don't want to sound all perpetrator-blaming – I do think some men ask to have their promising lives ruined. They should take precautions, like not raping, for instance. It's like how you don't go out of the house and leave your door unlocked while waving an iPhone about … Actually, it's nothing like that (I keep forgetting that's the world's shittest analogy). It's like, say, how you don't go out murdering people for any random reason you can think of (they're annoying, they're unconscious, they've definitely been sending you "please murder me" eye signals). Like that, only with rape. Oh, and the other thing is, "people" includes women – it's important to remember that bit. Don't rape people – and people includes women (who might also have promising lives themselves).

Do I, as a woman, feel bad about all the promising lives ruined? To be honest, not particularly. I think it takes courage to ruin a promising life, particularly when you're operating within a culture that's weighted in favour of all those rapists who have such promising lives ahead of them. I have huge admiration for the Steubenville survivor and hope she is aware that the world is neither her small town nor CNN. I hope she has a great life, a life far more promising than any that can be lived by so-called heroes who lack basic empathy and humanity. I hope she never feels her life is ruined; should we really care if those who attacked her currently feel that way about their own?

Glosswitch is a feminist mother of two who blogs at Glosswatch.