Victimizing the Victim?

A respectable journalist will approach a story like Shawn Hornbeck’s with caution. The extent to which he will probe and investigate, reveal and speculate, will depend heavily on how he balances his aim to address the public’s curiosity and his desire to avoid invading the family’s privacy. But how far can a journalist go without access to the source himself? In this media circus, the victim’s family perhaps plays a larger role than we are willing to admit.

Hornbeck’s family appeared on "Oprah" less than a week after he returned home. Was Oprah going too far when she asked his parents if they thought he had been sexually abused? That was for them to say. By answering her question—they both said yes—they were complicit in the media invasion.

To suggest that Hornbeck’s family was played by the media, confused—maybe even intoxicated—by all of the attention would be ignoring the complexity of the situation. It was media coverage of Shawn’s disappearance, after all, that helped them find their son. When Elizabeth Smart, a Utah teenager who was abducted from her home in 2002, was found nine months later, there was no shortage of headlines about the case. The frenzy was fed perhaps in part by Smart’s camera-comfortable parents, who spoke openly to the press (during at least one press conference) about their daughter’s return. The attention eventually died down, but the family has not retreated back to their world of anonymity. Elizabeth’s father, Edward Smart, just recently appeared on “Good Morning America Weekend Edition” to comment on the Hornbeck event.

The victims and their families must learn that they play an integral role in protecting themselves from media exposure. Staying out of the limelight until the next sensational story hits is a small sacrifice for those who value their privacy.

Rachel Healy
TJR Spring 2007