https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0566-7344
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ABSTRACT
An analysis of 201 academic sexual misconduct cases between 2017 and 2019 in which a United States university employee was named as alleged perpetrator showed that 80% were publicly broken by a legacy journalistic news outlet. The analysis demonstrates that journalism, especially local and student journalism, remains a successful method for exposing sexual misconduct of university employees. In 97 cases, news stories did not mention the #MeToo movement, indicating that cases were treated as a single person’s “bad behavior” rather than as a systemic societal problem linked to rape culture. Student journalists’ reporting, however, regularly linked individual cases to broader systemic issues in society, thus recognizing and contributing to a shift in public discourse on sexual misconduct.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For spelling consistency of #MeToo and #MeToo movement, we follow the AP Style Book 2020-2022, using variations only when they appear in direct quotes from sources we cite.
2 We use the term “victim” to highlight that a perpetrator has violated someone, so “one person has endured a trauma at the hands of another person” (Campoamor Citation2018, para. 3). Second, the term victim implicates a system that potentially re-victimizes people who report harassment and assault (Augustine Citation2019; Gupta Citation2014). We use the term “survivor” when it is used in self-references or in direct quotations. The term universities includes both universities and two- and four-year colleges.
3 An update was expected in April 2022 (US Department of Education Citation2021).
4 We did not code for the type of sexual misconduct.
5 Other media using conventional news writing standards include international media, trade magazines, legal media, and organizational websites.
6 Born 1981–1996 and 1997–2012 respectively, according to the Pew Research Center (Citation2019).