Globe, Academy Discuss Media Coverage, Bias
Over the course of the past year, The Boston Globe’s spotlight team has published a series of articles on cases of sexual misconduct at Exeter, a part of a larger series covering this issue at boarding and private day schools across New England. Since the articles’ publication, some members of the PEA community have expressed concern and frustration at a bias they see in The Globe’s writing. Despite criticism of the press coverage, the administration and members of the community have taken steps in the past three months to raise awareness about consent and sexual assault on campus. The school has made numerous administrative changes and hired outside investigators. Some alumni have threatened to withhold financial support. Two student organizations, Exonians Against Sexual Assault and MVMENT Magazine, were established to address sexual misconduct on campus.
Scott Allen, Spotlight team editor at The Boston Globe, explained that his team began to cover sexual misconduct at private schools last year after one of their reporters, Bella English, exposed years of previously unreported sexual abuse at St. George’s School in Rhode Island. They began to look at reports of sexual misconduct at private and parochial schools across New England, and found that their investigations yielded surprisingly fruitful results. “Frankly, we found a lot more allegations than we expected,” Allen said. “Including many that had never been made public and involved current teachers.”
“We do everything in our power to contact people who represent all perspectives in controversial incidents such as sexual misconduct allegations.”
English instructor Becky Moore said that what she has observed at Exeter regarding its handling of sexual misconduct cases does not fully align with what the Globe has reported. “In the case of the recent Globe articles about PEA, I know enough about the integrity of the colleagues mentioned to know that there must be more information that has not been made available to the media for reasons of student privacy or school litigation,” she said. “I am close enough to the institutional community to know of the complexities that I do not think have been fully represented in the stories.”
In addition, Health instructor Michelle Soucy feared that The Globe had not taken necessary precautions to prevent negative consequences as a result of the publication of the articles. “[The Globe] was a little too specific with some of the cases, which made it easy for members of our community to figure out who the people were,” she said. “I think that was a mistake.”
In spite of these accusations, Allen reported that the Spotlight team of reporters at The Globe have worked hard throughout their coverage of these sexual misconduct cases to ensure that they are hearing from a broad variety of people. “We talked to scores and scores of people to produce our stories on sexual misconduct, including alleged victims, witnesses, lawyers, teachers, school officials and others,” Allen said. “We do everything in our power to contact people who represent all perspectives in controversial incidents such as sexual misconduct allegations.”
In addition, reporters sought documentation in as many cases as possible, looking for evidence ranging from lawsuits to police reports to school disciplinary proceedings. “We look for corroborating evidence of every claim,” Allen said. “We also seek out contemporaneous documentation such as police reports or email that are sometimes more authoritative than people’s memories after the fact.”
Allen described the investigative process The Globe took for the July 2016 article they published, which revealed Exeter’s alleged mishandling of a recent sexual misconduct case at Exeter involving two students from the class of 2016. As well as interviewing the complainant, The Globe acquired emails from Reverend Robert H. Thompson, in which he said that the respondent expressed his regret and took responsibility for what he had done. They also acquired emails from Dean Melissa Mischke, which provided the school’s view on what happened after a school investigator interviewed him. “Our story about [the respondent] did not rely solely on [the complainant’s] perspective,” Allen said.
Mischke declined to comment. Members of the administration are unable to comment at this time due to ongoing legal investigations into cases of sexual misconduct involving the Academy. “The specific situation you are inquiring about is in the hands of law enforcement, and therefore the school administration will not be sharing any additional information,” Principal MacFarlane said, in a Sept. 8 interview with The Exonian.
Although the administration cannot comment on the cases covered by The Globe articles at this time, they have taken steps to address the issues raised. The academy has made revisions to the E-Book, hired two interim directors of student wellbeing, Tina Sciocchetti and Jane Stapleton, had faculty receive boundary training, updated the faculty handbook and code of conduct, published a Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response Action Plan, and has hired lawyers and consultants to review current policies and past cases of misconduct.
Nevertheless, Allen acknowledged that his team of reporters were not always able to incorporate the voices of every person involved, sometimes for reasons out of his control. “We also reached out to [the other student], members of his family and his attorney to give them an opportunity to comment,” he said. “They declined.”
He went on, explaining that the Spotlight team approached the story with particular care because of the youth of the involved parties. “We worked to make sure [the students’ attorneys] understood fully the nature of our story,” he said. “In the end, we felt it was an important story to tell since it provided an inside look at how one of the nation’s leading private schools handled a recent sexual misconduct complaint.”
Senior Bonnie LaBonté thought The Globe should have taken more steps to ensure that all parties were accurately represented. “Perhaps The Boston Globe could have had facts confirmed and also examined both sides of the story to give a clearer understanding of what happened,” she said.
Senior Tayo Zenger felt that bias was inherent in articles on complex issues like sexual misconduct. “Don’t believe everything you read,” he said. “When it comes to articles regarding sexual misconduct, in my opinion, we will never know the complete story.”
History instructor Michael Golay said the school itself may have had reasons for not talking directly to The Globe, but he understood why it would then make sense for the newspaper to move forward with the piece. “The school maintains its valid reasons about why it can’t be candid about these cases,” he said. “If a newspaper waited for powerful institutions to talk to them when it was convenient for the institutions, nothing would ever get reported.” LaBonté questioned the papers’ motives in the long-term coverage of this issue at private schools, and why few articles have been published about public school cases. “I think The Boston Globe loves to see rich people behaving poorly,” she said. “And sometimes they exploit the stories for their own benefit.”
Allen explained that, though sexual misconduct at public schools is undoubtedly an issue, the Spotlight team has been focused on addressing the symptoms of sexual abuse particular to private schools because of their environments. “We have tried to be clear throughout that there is no evidence that sexual misconduct is more prevalent at private schools than public ones,” he said. “However, child advocates have said that the boarding school setting creates unique opportunities for abuse.”
For Allen and the rest of the Spotlight team, their recent coverage of boarding school sexual misconduct has given them the opportunity to write about what they believe is an important and relevant issue. “Today’s students are our future and the public is right to be concerned about their safety and wellbeing,” he said. “We talked to many past victims of sexual abuse in school who were still traumatized many decades after their teachers took advantage of their trust and their innocence.”
Golay said the work The Globe had done was solid and as thorough as it could have been, given the circumstances of confidentiality. “The Globe has done service to us and to other schools by focusing on this issue and doing what I consider to be pretty sophisticated, very substantial reporting on an issue that should interest all of us,” he said.
Allen emphasized the importance of bringing the topic matter covered in The Globe series to light. “It’s a cliché, but it’s true: today’s students are our future and the public is right to be concerned about their safety and wellbeing,” he said.
LaBonté agreed with Allen, despite her misgivings about the biased nature of The Globe’s reporting. “The stories seem one sided and exaggerated, but they bring attention to problems of our past and start discussion,” she said.
Upper Chiara Perotti Correa said that she, too, found the reporting to be an important piece that helped to instigate change on campus. Correa highlighted the detriments as well as the benefits of The Globe’s reporting. “It has brought up awareness,” she said. “But at the same time, it has damaged the lives of people involved.”
Allen said he hoped The Globe’s reporting has opened up discussion and change across the country.
“We are extremely grateful that our stories have forced a national conversation about sexual misconduct in private schools, a conversation that was long overdue,” she said.