Pittsburgh Papers Offer Contrasting Coverage of Roethlisberger Sex Assault Lawsuit

By: Joe Strupp Pittsburgh's two major daily newspapers took very opposite approaches today in reporting the civil lawsuit filed against Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, which accuses him of sexually assaulting a woman in Nevada.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran its report as its lead Page One story, with a headline across the top declaring: "Sex assault lawsuit names Roethlisberger."

The story is also a top article on the paper's Web site, which posted a copy of the civil suit document.

The rival Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, however, barely mentions the lawsuit on Page One, noting it only in a sports blurb at the bottom of the page that states: "A Nevada woman accuses Ben Roethlisberger of rape -- accusations he has denied."

On the Tribune-Review Web site, meanwhile, the only story about the lawsuit is down in the sports section, and not even as a top sports story.

Both newspapers withheld the woman's name and did not run a photo of her. The Post-Gazette, in its posting of the lawsuit, also redacted her name.

"It is our policy not to name them," Post-Gazette Editor David Shribman said of the decision to withhold the accuser's identity. He told E&P: "You don't change long-standing policies in the midst of a tumultuous news story."

Editor Frank Craig of the Tribune-Review cited the fact that the story involved a civil lawsuit in a case in which no criminal charges have been filed. "That makes a big difference to us," he contends. "We also talked to her attorney and could not get any substantiation beyond the charges in the complaint." He also adds, "it was a year later, there was not a police complaint and it seemed to cry out for a little different treatment."

But Shribman had no apologies for playing the story up big, noting Roethlisberger's celebrity and the story's clear statement that no criminal charges were filed and the lawsuit is only an accusation.

"It is a serious story about a serious, big-time person in our town," he said about Roethlisberger, who won his second Super Bowl with the Steelers in February. "These are hard decisions and what is hard about them is fairness, fairness to one party and fairness to another party."

He also cited the dominance of the story in other local media and in conversations among readers: "This is something the community has been talking about for the past 36 hours."

Al Tompkins, a journalism instructor at The Poynter Institute, said a civil complaint needs to be handled more carefully when a criminal charge is not included. "There is good reason to ask why there was not a criminal complaint," he said. "Whoever aggressively reports the story has a responsibility to follow up."