The choice that journalist face when choosing whether or not to print victims' names in media is a passionate topic that almost always ends in disagreement. Some would say that media should print and broadcast the name because it alerts people of the crime and brings truth. While on the other side it would be argued that printing the victim's name would make them live the tragedy all over again and make victims not want to report crimes.
As one of the most controversial topics in law and media today, court rulings have pointed their finger in one direction and that has been the path ever since. Many journalists and researches believe that rape-victim identity and privacy is an ethical issue that should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. .
The United States Supreme Court mostly settled the legal issues of privacy in two decisions. The first requiring each state to display enough compelling interest to take precedence over the First Amendment protection given to journalists for the publication of truthful information. The Court has made it nearly impossible for rape victims to win privacy suits against media that identifies victims. However, this has not stopped rape victims from filling privacy suits against the media. .
The good news for news organizations is that the chances of winning suits brought against them by rape victims are very high. An overview of privacy suits filed by rape victims shows that nearly all of them are lost at appellate levels, because courts find information from the investigation and the trials to be of public interest. The Courts have also established that once a news organization learns information about a public matter, the publication cannot be stopped from printing whatever it wants. If news organizations were to be punished by the Courts for printing victims names, than they may choose to with hold not just the names, but also other public information.
