Offending Kobe site is by USC grad

Eliot Javdan, class of 2002, was the stand-up guy secretly behind the website pushing the home phone, address and email and even satellite photo of the house where Kobe Bryant's alleged victim can be contacted, writes Mark Glaser at OJR. Glaser had to find Javdan using the Internet registry and some digging because the blogger opted to remain anonymous. To his credit, Javdan pulled the private contact data off his site (but left up links) after the woman reported getting death threats, Glaser says.

The column explores the ethical controversies that have heated up around the Bryant case, including today's essay by former Washington Post ombudsman Geneva Overholser arguing it's time the media name the victims in sex crime cases. In his piece, Glaser quotes me and serial L.A. Observed commenter Luke Ford, among others. It's a good overview (and I also recommend Glaser's last OJR column on journalists who rely too much on the Net), but I have one nit to pick.

When Mark wrote that I'm locked in a heated debate with Ford, I looked to my left, then my right, and thought: who me? In a post here I tweaked Ford and others for their personal ethics in linking to the woman's email, address and other personal data, and I scoffed at his claim that he was acting in response to 30 years of feminist media. But I posted maybe five comments in the long thread, and one of them announced my early and I thought gracious exit from the blather. That didn't stop Ford from wanking away in that thread and another where he fantasized some Fordian nonsense about me. Debate? Uh-uh. As I told Glaser, you don't debate with fanatics on the Internet. Ford was being given his due -- which is to say, he was being ignored, by me and by some others.

I've still taken no position on the big questions being bandied about in the Bryant case -- how to balance the rights and privacy of the accused and accuser, how the media should handle rape cases and celebrity cases, etc. I've only caught the news sporadically, and I've posted on it very little. My sole entry point into the the fray has been narrow and specific -- in my opinion it was a low-class act of disrespect to circulate the woman's home address, phone and email, so I said so.

7:20 PM Thursday, July 24 2003 • Link
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I was convinced by Geneva Overholser, as I posted on my blog, but the whole event depresses me know end. I was a huge Kobe fan and now, no matter what happens, that will be difficult. I know being a fan is in some senses idiotic, but it's one of the few available ways to stay a kid--now gone too.

Posted by: Roger L. Simon at July 26, 2003 06:37 PM

Come on over to the dark side and watch some pucks. More intense and graceful game, the sport is less spoiled by the influence of money, and the players are much nicer and in a lot of cases better spoken than any other pro athletes I've encountered. Well, the ones with teeth anyway.

Posted by: Kevin Roderick at July 27, 2003 02:45 AM

I'm sure you know all the reasons that rape victims and their advocates want to keep their identity unknown, and I'm sure you mean no malice by suggesting they be known, but we disagree wholeheartedly.

Each 'victim' is different and if they wish to be named, they can be. The most important aspect of a victim's recovery is their empowerment, their feelings of control over their healing and justice. By naming them without their consent, we would:

1. Take even more power away from victims, making it more difficult to heal and feel in control of their lives again;
2. Scare women away from reporting to police even more. This is one of the MOST underreported crimes, and by ensuring anonymity, we are increasing the number of reports and thereby, increasing the number of arrests(right now the DOJ estimates that as much as 84% of rape victims do not report).

Please consider these consequences as serious for both victims and society, and imagine what it might feel like to be raped, come to terms with naming that, and have the small amount of power you might still have left stripped from you by the system which purports to find justice in your name.

I hope Geneva re-considers her opinion on naming rape victims.

Posted by: Adrienne at August 1, 2003 03:41 PM
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