Naming Names

A stormy new rape debate

Civility may be in retreat on other fronts, but most newspapers still routinely decline to print the names of alleged rape victims. That courtesy is seldom required by law and rarely afforded the victims of other crimes. Herman J. Obermayer, 53, editor and publisher of the Northern Virginia Sun, an evening daily that goes to 20,000 households just south of the nation's capital, thinks it is time the custom ended.

In a front-page editorial, Obermayer announced that the Sun will begin printing the names, ages and addresses of women whose rape complaints come to trial. "Protecting the accuser's anonymity, while fully identifying the accused, is tantamount to a pretrial presumption of guilt," he asserts. "A malicious woman could try to make the state take away a man's freedom for life without even risking public embarrassment."

Obermayer's declaration has been hotly denounced by local feminists, police, prosecutors, hospital officials and nearly all the Sun readers who have written or telephoned Obermayer to comment. "I assumed I'd get some mail, but I never expected this storm." says Obermayer. Though some opponents concede a logic in his position, most fear that the effect will be to discourage victims from coming forward. Says Sue Lenaerts of Washington's Rape Crisis Center: "Rape is a horrible, humiliating, degrading thing. If women know they'll be identified in the papers, hardly any will take a rapist to trial."

Journalists generally decry the Sun doctrine. "Obermayer's making a mistake," says the Washington Post's Ben Bradlee. "It's wrong. It's misguided. We wouldn't do it." Yet some might. "We're rethinking our whole position," says Dave Lanzettel, city editor of the Portland (Me.) Express, which last year identified a 27-year-old rape victim. The Boston Globe names names when the victim is well known. Says Ombudsman Charles Whipple: "If the Governor's daughter were raped, don't think we wouldn't print it."

Obermayer concedes that he will suppress the name of a rape victim in a few instances, if, for example, she is under 18 or if disclosure would endanger her, but insists that no amount of public opposition can change his intention to stop granting such anonymity automatically. So far, his resolve has not been tested.

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