How the Media Talks About Trauma

The MeToo movement and the recent sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have been dominating headlines and news coverage for the past two weeks. This has led to a shift in language surrounding trauma and sexual assault and has simultaneously caused many survivors to revisit traumatic events.

The common rhetoric around allegations of sexual assault is to never place blame or guilt. Kavanaugh isn't a suspected rapist, he is someone who is accused of sexual assault. This obviously is so news outlets cannot be sued for defamation, but it also diminishes the humanity of the victim (usually described as the 'accuser'.)

The hollow language surrounding trauma and assault allows news outlets to reframe the conversation in an often patriarchial way, where the assaulter (usually male, especially in the mainstream conversation around MeToo) is never actually painted in a negative light, although they have just been accused of a terrible crime. This allows readers to more easily sympathize with the one 'accused' and not for the victim (who is never even described as a victim, again stripping them of their humanity and making it hard for the reader to sympathize), often harming perceptions of sexual assault survivors.

Not only that, but, as mentioned above, a constant cycle of news about assault can be traumatizing for survivors, yet that is often an after-thought in rhetoric, instead of something that helps shape how the news is presented.

News outlets need to reconsider how they present these conversations and need to work to allow survivors a chance to grieve without invalidating traumatic experiences by using vague and hollow language.