How Public Outrage and Media Coverage Affect the Stanford Rape Case

Last week, Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Brock Turner, a former freshman at Stanford University, to 6 months at a county prison and 3 years probation for raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster on the university’s campus last year. The decision sparked public outrage online and across social media - not just over the sentence, but also over the ways in which the media has portrayed Turner. Dayna Evans, a staff writer for “The Cut” at New York Magazine, and Claudia Garcia-Rojas, a writer and coordinator at The Chicago Taskforce on Violence Against Girls & Young Women, discuss the Brock Turner rape case. Garcia-Rojas is the co-author of “Reporting Sexual Violence” an intersectional guide for journalists who cover sexual violence. She is currently also completing a doctorate degree in the Department of African American studies at Northwestern University.