Media reports about the abuse of cleaning staff by students at the University of the Free State got horrified responses from various quarters. In this climate of public outrage, the print media had the choice of whether to make the identities of the offenders and victims public, or not. Most media seemed to have decided to publish the identities of the perpetrators, some media even added to the initial infringement on the victims’ dignity by revealing their identities. This article explores the ethics and reasons around this decision.

The Media Monitoring Project is now a friend of the court in the Sunday Times’ application to the Constitutional Court for an order declaring that section 12 violates the constitution.

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The coverage of Microbicide trails in 2007 the following findings showed the following patterns:

• The stories were afforded significant prominence in some of the newspapers monitored.
• Just over a quarter of the content items dramatised the issues.  This included using phrases such as “frantic search”, describing the volunteers as “desperate” or “pleading”, the use of exclamation marks, different font sizes and capitals to emphasise controversy, and the use of unnamed sources who make allegations that are not substantiated in the items monitored;
• Most content items analysed show a clear bias either in favour of the HIV and AIDS researchers, or against the researchers.
• In contrast, the volunteers are treated ambivalently and even in a demeaning way in several content items.