Logan’s Sexual Assault Brings Wave Of Blaming The Victim And Other Ugliness

I’ll never understand the vitriol coming from so many people about Lara Logan’s horrendous ordeal in Egypt…

Media Matters

During a news brief on this morning’s Fox & Friends, Gretchen Carlson reported that CBS correspondent Lara Logan had been “beaten and sexually assaulted by a mob of men while covering the political uprising in Egypt.” While Carlson reported the story as nothing but factual, during her report, the onscreen text read, “Journalist Assaulted in Egypt? Report: Protesters Attacked CBS’ Lara Logan.”

Is Fox really questioning the validity of the story? If not, why the question mark?

Fox isn’t alone in having a completely inappropriate response to Logan’s tragic assault. Others have seized on the story to attack Logan, suggesting that the reason this happened was because she was a pretty woman reporting in the middle of a war zone. As Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams observed:

In a stunningly offensive blog post titled “Lara Logan, CBS Reporter and Warzone ‘It Girl,’ Raped Repeatedly Amid Egypt Celebration” for LA Weekly, writer Simone Wilson managed to mention Logan’s “shocking good looks and ballsy knack for pushing her way to the heart of the action” before getting to the assault itself. She then went on to imagine how it happened: “In a rush of frenzied excitement, some Egyptian protestors apparently consummated their newfound independence by sexually assaulting the blonde reporter.” Well, sure, what other motive for an assault could there be, given that Logan is, in Wilson’s words, a “gutsy stunner” with “Hollywood good looks”? And how else do Egyptians celebrate anyway but with a gang assault? It’s not like she deserved it, but well, she is hot, right?

[…]

Wilson wasn’t the only person out there to be wildly tone-deaf in response, either. When the news broke, Nir Rosen, a fellow at the New York University Center for Law and Security, promptly whined to Twitter, “It’s always wrong, that’s obvious, but I’m rolling my eyes at all the attention she’ll get,” adding, “She’s so bad that I ran out of sympathy for her.” He soon backpedaled, deleting several of his most offensive posts and tweeting, “I apologize and take it back. joking with friends got out of line when i didnt [sic] want to back down. forgot twitter is not exactly private.” Apparently he still hasn’t remembered that sexual assault isn’t great joking around material.

Rosen since resigned his post at NYU.

But he’s not alone. Read more here…