Letter to the Editor

Dear Matthias,

For somebody that presumably is trying to educate the world on what good journalism is, your column “Smile, You’re at a protest” was a tragicomedy. Journalists are responsible to do more than just take pictures and present an emotionless report of events, they must capture the contest in which events occur. In this, I feel your article about SlutWalk and Take Back the Night was a glaring failure.

Above all other messages, SlutWalk and Take Back the Night emphasize the need for consent. Wearing a short skirt is not an invitation for men to have sex with them. Only yes means yes. Likewise, appearing in public with like-minded people to promote a cause is not an invitation to the media. Only yes means yes.

A further, though different, mistake made in publishing these photos and complainin about being asked not to is that many attendees are survivors of sexual assault. Their requests to not be put in the paper are legitimate, and given the low rate of persecution for rapists and domestic abusers, you could actually be putting people in danger by revealing information to abusers still lurking in the community. Explicitly being asked to not publish photos and doing it anyway is highly insensitive and tasteless journalism. I hope an apology will be in your next column.

– J.D. Hutton, 3rd Year IDS and Econ