"There is no research available on the prevalence of abuse at private schools and whether it is more common than in public schools, where one federal study found nearly 10 percent of students are targets of unwanted sexual attention by educators in grades K-12."
Isn't it a moral obligation to look into that before making an article like this?
It's like the end of Spotlight where the ending contradicts the title by listing every place where priest sexual abuse was found, which is pretty much everywhere. Shouldn't the spotlight be shined on wherever sexual abuse never occurs so that such a place may be emulated? Or is there such a place? If not, then research there should be starting point for fundamental change.
Sounds like they looked into it... and found that there was no research. They're certainly not morally obligated to conduct research on the matter. This is a story about events that allegedly did happen, it is their journalistic obligation to ensure the information they're reporting is correct, but not to follow all possible research avenues.
The whole point of the article is that private schools get away with things because they're private. If they want to make that claim, then they do have a responsibility to make sure that the facts back it up.
> The whole point of the article is that private schools get away with things because they're private
You've built a fine straw man. But in fact, the authors explicitly identify several hypotheses that aren't inherent to (but do correlate with) private schools:
1. "boarding schools, in particular, present unique opportunities for educators to have close contact with students" (yes, public boarding schools exist.)
2. "The schools, many with rich histories and famed alumni, have often struggled to balance the need to respond robustly to abuse allegations with a desire to guard their reputations." (yes, public schools with rich histories and famed alumni exist.)
So the authors specifically aren't saying that the schools "get away with things" soley because they're private. They're simply saying that abuse happens at private schools. Which, regardless of how it compares to abuse happening at public schools, is worth reporting on.
> If they want to make that claim, then they do have a responsibility to make sure that the facts back it up.
1. Your strawman aside, The actual claims made in the article are all well-substantiated or else are clearly presented as hypotheses, not facts.
2. Following this principle would effectively censor a lot of important investigative journalism.
As far as journalism these days goes, this article is excellent. The writing is nuanced but clear, the reporters report back hypotheses about underlying causes that relate to the human side of the story but with minimal editorializing, and the article is even accompanied by a hand-curated data set.
Alas, there is this problem at public schools too. What helps over the long term is for families to have the power to shop, so each family can look for a school that is affordable for their family with characteristics that are safe for that family's children.
I'm getting kind of tired of seeing 'outrage' stories here. They're kind of like politics: a bunch of kids being abused is way more important than the javascript framework du jour, or the latest startup. However, there are so many horrible, outrageous things in the world that it'd be easy to keep the front page of this site full of them.
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[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 21.9 ms ] threadIsn't it a moral obligation to look into that before making an article like this?
It's like the end of Spotlight where the ending contradicts the title by listing every place where priest sexual abuse was found, which is pretty much everywhere. Shouldn't the spotlight be shined on wherever sexual abuse never occurs so that such a place may be emulated? Or is there such a place? If not, then research there should be starting point for fundamental change.
You've built a fine straw man. But in fact, the authors explicitly identify several hypotheses that aren't inherent to (but do correlate with) private schools:
1. "boarding schools, in particular, present unique opportunities for educators to have close contact with students" (yes, public boarding schools exist.)
2. "The schools, many with rich histories and famed alumni, have often struggled to balance the need to respond robustly to abuse allegations with a desire to guard their reputations." (yes, public schools with rich histories and famed alumni exist.)
So the authors specifically aren't saying that the schools "get away with things" soley because they're private. They're simply saying that abuse happens at private schools. Which, regardless of how it compares to abuse happening at public schools, is worth reporting on.
> If they want to make that claim, then they do have a responsibility to make sure that the facts back it up.
1. Your strawman aside, The actual claims made in the article are all well-substantiated or else are clearly presented as hypotheses, not facts.
2. Following this principle would effectively censor a lot of important investigative journalism.
As far as journalism these days goes, this article is excellent. The writing is nuanced but clear, the reporters report back hypotheses about underlying causes that relate to the human side of the story but with minimal editorializing, and the article is even accompanied by a hand-curated data set.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/magazine/the-horace-man...
The advisor at my temple's youth group went to jail for pedophilia. (He was also a teacher) The predators hang out near the victims.