I just had the opportunity to read the Missoulian’s story on the ongoing rape crisis in Missoula. As unbelievably bad as the response from the University, Police Department, and city have been up to this point, the newly released e-mails reveal a culture hostile to women who reported rape and more interested in public relations than justice or even safety.
Heads need to roll. Not for the sake of UM’s reputation, not for the abstract pursuit of justice, but to ensure that Missoula is no longer a community that tolerates this kind of behavior from people entrusted with protecting public and student safety.
No one who believes that it’s appropriate to accuse rape victims of lying deserves to serve in a job committed to public safety. No one who believes it’s appropriate to punish a rape victim for having the courage to go public should serve in a position involved with students.
Huge credit to the Missoulian for investing the resources to get these e-mails. Read jhwygirl’s take over at 4and20blackbirds.
I must admit that I am not a highly compensated member of a corporate board nor an expert in executive compensation, but I have to assume that Lee Enterprises CEO Mary Junck is due for another half million dollar bonus after these stellar results in the second fiscal quarter:
Operating revenue for the quarter totaled $172.3 million, a decrease of 3.6% compared with a year ago. Combined print and digital advertising revenue decreased 5.3% to $117.5 million, with retail advertising down 3.5%, classified down 7.1% and national down 9.7%. Combined print and digital classified employment revenue decreased 0.3%, while automotive decreased 3.9%, real estate decreased 12.2% and other classified decreased 11.5%. Digital advertising revenue on a stand-alone basis increased 9.9% to $15.7 million. Print revenue on a stand-alone basis decreased 7.3%. Circulation revenue increased 0.1%.
Overall, as the Washington Post reports, Lee lost 54 cents per share in the quarter for a total of 26.6 million dollars:
The company said it lost $26.6 million, or 54 cents per share, for the fiscal second quarter that ended March 25. That compares with a loss of $1.5 million, or 3 cents per share, for the same period a year ago.
Lest anyone forget, Lee’s CEO Mary Junck took a bonus of $500,000 during a quarter when the company she leads lost $26 million dollars.
Optimistic press releases about evolving “in the digital age” notwithstanding, the corporate raid on Lee’s profitable small newspapers continues, as readers and advertisers are fleeing a product that lacks the resources to produce consistent quality. Lee’s failed strategy and corporate piracy are stripping these local papers of their most valued commodity: local belief that the newspaper will offer complete and comprehensive coverage.
One has to love the dispassionate tone of corporate press releases, especially when it relates to actual human beings losing their jobs. From the press release:
Compensation decreased 5.2%, with the average number of full-time equivalent employees down 7.5%.
That’s 7 per cent fewer people collecting, editing, producing, and distributing the news that is vital to many communities only served by one newspaper.
I derive no pleasure from watching the decline of newspapers—it’s certainly a tough environment when a company with no revenue is worth more than the New York Times—but the mismanagement and theft from local newspapers by the Lee chain is especially galling. People who work for their papers and the communities those papers serve deserve better.
This morning I woke up to the news of Robin Pflugrad and Jim O’Day’s dismissal from UM’s athletic program. While I was not surprised that these two men were asked to leave presumably because of their involvement in the recent sexual assault scandal involving members of the football team, I am shocked to see the manner in which the Missoulian presented the reception of the news within the Griz community.
Bill Speltz’s article, published under the headlines “Griz football program in limbo following firing of O’Day, Pflugrad” and “Griz left shocked, wondering why” on the Missoulian and Independent Record websites, respectively, seems to console the wrong parties. The article uses the words “unsettling,” “bombshell,” and “heartfelt” within the first 250 words that describe the difficulties of switching coaches in the middle of spring training. The article states that the football program needs to “rebound from its current predicament,” depicting the UM football community as being in a state of total shock after losing competent and well-respected leaders. In contrast, the Missoulian‘s initial article on the alleged UM sexual assaults that appeared on December 16, 2011 is written in a dry professional tone, free from the emotional rhetoric present in today’s article.
While I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t speak to the quality of Pflugrad and O’Day’s coaching and leadership abilities, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were both proficient in their jobs as they relate to athletics. I don’t doubt for a second that they will be missed by players and fans alike. But Speltz’s article highlights the emotional stress that the football community is currently undergoing, while sidelining the real victims: the survivors of sexual assault. Their stress and ostracism will no doubt increase with the outpouring of support for the coach and athletic director who mismanaged the handling of the sexual assault allegations. Speltz’s article will probably be the way most people find out about Pflugrad and O’Day’s dismissal, and thus has tremendous power in forming public opinion on the scandal. By framing it in such ways that stresses the problems for fans and athletes, Speltz excludes the ongoing problems for those people who are still dealing with the trauma of sexual assault.
Pflugrad and O’Day’s role in the recent sexual assault allegations at UM resonate with an article published in the National Catholic Register a few days ago about the rampant protection of football players by Notre Dame officials from allegations of sexual assault. First-year student Lizzy Seeberg committed suicide in August of 2010 after school authorities shielded a football player from police inquiry and failed to proceed with an internal investigation of her sexual assault. Notre Dame and the University of Montana aren’t the only schools that protect their star athletes from legal ramifications, but are emblematic of a larger problem. I bring up Lizzy Seeberg’s story because Melinda Henneberger’s thorough investigation reveals the ugly underbelly of a university when confronted with a crime seemingly perpetrated by a beloved athlete. I can only wait in dread of the details that emerge as the UM investigations unfold.
I hope that today’s events are the first step in changing how UM- and by extension, all colleges and universities- treat allegations of sexual assault, especially involving student athletes. When institutions of higher learning protect their athletes from legal scrutiny, they send a message to their students and communities that the alumni-rallying money machine of athletics is more important than the physical safety of their students. The Missoulian‘s coverage, among other things, only helps support this message.
Last week, as Representative Rehberg went on his Talking Points Tour of Montana editorial
boards, he dropped by the Missoulian and offered this gem:
Among the priorities Rehberg said he’d protect from cuts, Pell grants for college students was the first mentioned. He said he worked to maintain the $5,550 annual top grant, but also put new controls on who could get them.
Working to protect Pell Grants which allow middle and working class Montana students to attend college would be a noble endeavor, but Representative’s rhetoric in the Missoulian has not, unfortunately, been matched by his record.
In just the past two years, Rehberg has done exact opposite of his claim, not only voting against $5,5000 maximum Pell Grants, but repeatedly voting to cut them.
- On March 25, 2010, Rehberg voted against the Reconciliation Act of 2010, which raised the maximum Pell Grant to $5,550
- On February 19, 2011, Rehberg voted for his House Resolution 1, which cut the maximum Pell Grant to $4,705.
- On April 1, 2011, Represenative Rehberg infamously called Pell Grants the “welfare of the 21st century.”
- On Aug 22, 2011, Rehberg directly told the people of Montana that he personally cut Pell Grants by almost $1,000/year: He told the Mark Allen Show in Bozeman, “with HR 1, I just attempted to roll it back by $845 and you thought I was destroying the program.”
You just can’t have your TEA and drink it, too, Representative Rehberg. While the reactionary wing of your party wants you to gut vital services, you can’t tell them you’re making cuts while telling the rest of us you’re working to preserve programs.
At least have the decency to tell Montana families the truth when you’re working to make college less affordable for them.
It’s incredibly difficult for anyone to come forward when the victim of sexual assault. Victims are often unwilling to come forward because of social stigma, fear that their claims will not be believed, fear of further victimization, shame and other reasons. The Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network says over 60% of sexual assaults are unreported.
The challenge of reporting rape makes the actions of the Missoula Police Department and the Missoulian almost impossible to understand.
On the day after the Missoulian reported that a UM football player has been charged with rape, the newspaper is giving top of the page attention to a story titled “Research varies on rate of false rape reports,” giving credence to the misogynistic, damaging idea that women are likely to manufacture claims of sexual assault.
The entire framing of the story is almost unimaginably insensitive. There’s been no public defense from the accused asserting he is the victim of a false claim. There’s been no evidence to suggest that women are making false claims about rape in Missoula.
Rather than focusing on the fact that a Missoula police officer was merely “counseled” for telling a woman reporting a rape that women make false claims to avoid “trouble with their boyfriends,” the story lets Missoula Police Chief Mark Muir justify treating rape victims as criminals:
When Muir visited in person with that woman and another who’d filed a sexual assault complaint, "we had a discussion here in my office about the fact that there is false reporting that does take place," he said. "There are studies that have shown numbers are closer to 40 to 50 percent."
Later he emailed the woman a 2009 article about those studies, two of which used polygraph tests. One of those examined 1,218 reports of rape on Air Force bases in the 1980s and subjected 546 of those making allegations in "unresolved" cases to polygraphs.
"Twenty seven percent of these complainants admitted they had fabricated their accusations just before taking the polygraph or right after they failed the test," the Forensic Examiner article said. That study combined the finding with other results to come up with a false accusation rate of 45 percent.
The officer who made the remark should be exposed and disciplined, rather than protected by his boss and the media. Chief Muir should either make it clear that he doesn’t believe 50% of women who report rape are lying—or he should resign, because Missoulians—both men and women—deserve to know that the police will help them when they are victims of any kind of assault.
