Last year’s Academy Award-winner for best picture, Spotlight, received justifiably widespread acclaim for its portrayal of the indelible role of enterprise journalism in maintaining a society in which the weak may confront the strong. Specific to its dramatization of journalism, there are two key insights that are easy to lose track of in the film’s…
“You think you could tell a rapist to stop doing what he’s doing? Do you, really? And he’s going to listen to an ad campaign to stop?” At the end of a heated exchange over guns and personal safety for women on his Fox News program, Sean Hannity asked that of his guest, Democratic strategist Zerlina Maxwell. During the segment, Maxwell suggested that the best way to stop rape was to teach young men not to rape, rather than to arm all women. Hannity’s statement reveals a telling blind spot. He inhabits a world in which there is no rape culture, only rapists, who are criminals.
Aaron S. Veenstra, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at Southern Illinois University, adds his perspective to a story written by William H. Freivogel titled “Election results show super PACs can’t buy Republican victories.”