FREE MISSOURI LAUNCHES PETITION TO POST-DISPATCH AND LEE PUBLISHING
Apology demanded for victim-blaming article against a woman kidnapped as a teenager and tortured, raped and trafficked for sex.
Click here for: Link to Petition
St. Louis – MO, March 31, 2011 – Free Missouri, a St. Louis-based coalition of concerned citizens, has launched a Change.org petition targeting St. Louis Post-Dispatch editors and Lee Publishing.
The petition targets a Post-Dispatch article published on November 5th, 2010 under the headline, “A Missouri Town’s Doubts about a Sex Torture Case.” Petitioners claim the article uses a gossip-based, victim-blaming slant that is potentially harmful to the victim in the case, to all persons experiencing sexual violence, and to efforts to fight human trafficking in Missouri and elsewhere.
Yesterday [March 31, 2011] additional charges were filed in this case by the office of U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips, both against the woman very sympathetically profiled in the Post-Dispatch story, Marilyn Bagley, one of the alleged captors, and against Bradley Cook, who “is also charged with two additional counts of using an interstate facility in the commission of murder for hire, and with one count each of attempted tampering with a victim and attempted witness retaliation, all of which are related to an alleged attempt to kill FV between Sept. 28, 2010, and Dec. 9, 2010. Cook is also charged with tampering with another witness, who is identified as “JP” in the indictment.”
The Change.org petition asks the Post-Dispatch to apologize for the article and provide op-ed space to an anti-trafficking advocate to discuss human trafficking in Missouri and how victim-blaming contributes to the proliferation of sexual abuse and the hidden crime of human trafficking by intimidating victims into fear and silence.
Importantly, two of the perpetrators in this case, James Noel and Denis Henry have already pled guilty to human trafficking and participating in the young woman's torture and rape. The petition provides links to the Federal indictment and other supporting materials of the case and the petition's arguments.
The issue of victim-blaming articles by major media outlets came to national prominence after the New York Times published "Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town," an article that appeared to blame an 11-year-old for her own gang rape. The Change.org petition, launched by a New York resident, was featured the Huffington Post and Yahoo News, and has received 47,233 signatures as of this writing. The New York Times published a mea culpa on March 11 and sent another reporter to Cleveland, Texas for a re-evaluation and re-write. However, the Post-Dispatch has not responded to outcry against “A Missouri Town’s Doubts about a Sex Torture Case.”
The petition was created by Margaret Howard, founder of Free Missouri and fellow advocates Jenny Joy and Simone Roberts. It petitions the following persons: Post-Dispatch President and Publisher (Kevin Mowbray), Post-Dispatch Deputy Managing Editor (Steve Parker), Post-Dispatch Assistant Managing Editor (Adam Goodman), Vice President of News, Lee Enterprises (Joyce L. Dehli), Vice President – Audience, Lee Enterprises (Suzanna Frank), Chariman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lee Enterprises (Mary E. Junck).
Howard, a graduate student at Washington University Brown School for Social Work and advocate for victims and survivors of human trafficking, says, "The Western Judicial District of Missouri has prosecuted more human trafficking cases than any other district in the United States. That office is providing national leadership and real prosecution of these horrible crimes, and this kind of gossip-based article is damaging to victims and supportive of criminals. This kind of sensational, slanted presentation is directly harmful to the victim and undermining of efforts at public education on the real problem of human trafficking, and it needs to stop. Even if Todd Frankel is uneducated about what's happening in Missouri, it is hard to understand how this article could have gotten past the editors and publishers who are, after all, the captains of their ship."
