Was Rihanna’s Privacy Violated?

Jezebel linked to this article the other day, and it made me think.

The article questions whether or not Rihanna’s privacy was violated by the LA Times. She seems to think that the paper was perfectly in the right when they named her as the accuser.

In the American Journalism Review, Geneva Overholser, Missouri School of Journalism professor and the Pulitzer prize winner for a series on rape, argues that “in the long run, we’ll never get rid of the stigma if we don’t treat these like regular crimes. … It’s just not ethical to make a choice about guilt or innocence, which is effectively what we do. It makes us look like we are assuming innocence on one part, guilt on another. … We should not be determining who deserves our protection.” 

This makes sense on an intellectual level — rape is treated very differently from other crimes, and that’s part of the reason for the low conviction rate — but my gut feeling is NO NO NO NO NO. I know that if I were a victim of rape or domestic violence I would not want that information printed in the paper. Surviving domestic violence is traumatizing enough without everyone else knowing about it.

Further down, the writer says that shame is for criminals. And while it’s true that victims of these crimes shouldn’t have to be ashamed, the sad fact is that many of them will feel that way, and anyone willing to put innocents through public humiliation just to get a message across has to be pretty heartless.

The author also points out that this is a domestic violence case, not a rape case. How do you think that affects the situation?

Thoughts?