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"Journalism itself has failed to identify rape as an issue, instead of just as a news event. Our stories most often begin with police reports and court cases and end with the question: Should we name this victim."

-- Kelly McBride

Poynter Institute, Ethics faculty

For some, the nightmare started years ago, for others it started just last week and for some the nightmare will never end.

The trial of a man accused of sexually assaulting his own daughter was scheduled to last two weeks.

Our immediate thoughts at the Craig Daily Press were how were we going to cover this? How were we going to expend our limited resources? How were we going to handle the "naming names" issue? How were we going to present this issue before our community?

We had sent reporter Jeremy Browning to cover the trial on Wednesday and within the hour the Craig Police Department called and asked us to withhold any coverage until after the trial. The department as well as the prosecution was worried that any day-to-day coverage could jeopardize jury integrity and lead to a mistrial. While the jury had been instructed not to discuss the case, members had not been physically sequestered and there was no guarantee that they would not read any coverage that the Daily Press produced.

We carefully weighed what would be accomplished by providing day-to-day coverage against the public good that might be compromised if a mistrial took place. We decided to hold the trial coverage until a verdict was rendered.

This decision was made a week ago Wednesday.

The trial, however, was wrapped up much sooner than we thought with the jury rendering a verdict on Friday afternoon.

We could have done a single story -- a play-by-play recap of the trial, the testimony, the objections, what the jury didn't hear, the verdict and what was to come.

The topic is one that people would rather avoid. It makes people wince with anxiety and tension. Rape makes for an ugly, uncomfortable discussion.

But rape is reality.

It is something that occurs in this community more often than we would like to think about.

But how does a newspaper report on such a sensitive topic without sinking into the ambiguity that renders such news story virtually useless to its readers?

We thought we could best serve our readers by producing a series of stories on sexual assault in general and incest in particular.

We wanted to look at the issue, not just the event.

The Craig Daily Press has a policy not to identify the victims of sexual assault and to only identify the perpetrator after a conviction has been handed down.

But when it comes to incest, naming the perpetrator would also reveal the identity of the victim so in these cases we name neither.

But what if the victim wanted to be named? What if the victim wanted to speak out? What if the victim saw this as a way to dispel the misconceptions of sexual assault? What if the victim viewed stepping into the public light as a way to step beyond being a victim?

The question of naming names is not as clear cut as a one-sentence policy makes it out to be.

According to Kelly McBride, the media can play an important role in how it deals with sexual assault in the community.

But because sexual assault is "incredibly complex and incredibly common" there are barriers that the media must hurdle in order to provide coverage that is meaningful and useful to a community, McBride says.

The Craig Daily Press for much of last week and throughout much of this week has striven to provide such coverage while maintaining a sensitivity to the victims involved and the issue at hand.

"Bleeding the Black Ink" is a weekly column that aims at getting readers better acquainted with the Craig Daily Press, the First Amendment and the newspaper industry. Do you have a question or an issue for an upcoming column? Call Terrance Vestal at 824-7031 or email him at tvestal@craigdailypress.com.