In a court case involving sexual assault charges — such as the Kobe Bryant case — an unwritten rule of journalism is to keep the name of the accuser anonymous. However, one of America’s leading journalists believes knowing his or her name is a constitutional right.

Geneva Overholser, former editor of the Des Moines Register and editorial board member of the New York Times, spoke to nearly 200 people in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union Monday.

She said the U.S. media’s lack of rape coverage furthered the stigma of the crime instead of stopping it.

“I still believe openness requires us to name names,” she said.

“In the end, both the public and the individuals involved are better off when their names are out in the open.”

Since names of rape victims are not reported in mainstream newspapers, Overholser runs against the grain of most journalists. For example, even though the rape charges against Kobe Bryant surfaced seven months ago, Bryant’s alleged victim still remains anonymous in major newspapers.

Overholser said this policy can encourage an untruth about sexual assault: Victims asked for it.

“Wasn’t silencing rape victims in a way buying into the notion — the deeply unfair notion — that they had done something wrong?” Overholser said.

Overholser is a pioneer in advocating printing the names of rape victims.

She was the Des Moines Register’s editor in 1989, when the paper published a five-part series about a rape victim who wanted her story told. The series won a Pulitzer Prize.

What followed was a national debate about keeping the names of victims under wraps, which Overholser believes was a media revolution.

“I’ll believe till the day I die our series on rape changed the way rape was covered,” she said. “We turned a spotlight on the crime and today there is more coverage.”

Overholser said the argument that printing the names of victims would further stigmatize them was false because people who personally know the rape victims would already know about their victimization without the help of the media.

She said the rule of keeping victims’ names anonymous is outdated, since these names can leak through other sources, such as the Internet and radio personalities.

“The shock jocks have had a field day with the Kobe Bryant case, and it’s been all over the nether-regions of the Internet,” she said, referring to these sources revealing the name of the alleged sexual assault victim. “Some of these jerks pretend to be heroes — ‘telling the truth where other media fear to do so.'”

Overholser said protecting women’s identities out of fear was a byproduct of America’s high level of fearfulness.

She closed by reminding the audience that in the face of valid fears like terrorism, sometimes people are dangerously willing to give up openness and truth-telling out of fear. Truth is the remedy, she said.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” Overholser said.