Four panelists led a discussion on reporting sexual assaults in the news Thursday night, Nov. 7, at Temple’s Center City Campus. The focus of the discussion was to shift the focus off the victim in covering sexual assault cases and towards the perpetrator, according to the panel moderator Tara Murtha.

Murtha began the event by quickly chronicling the lack of coverage of sexual assault by the media. One of the panelists, Carol Tracy, explained how this has changed.

A few years ago, the Inquirer exposed the Philadelphia Police Department for decades of burying sexual assault cases through loopholes and technicalities. Tracy said that discoveries like this are what have started a wave of action in the country.

Another of the panelists, Allison Hraba, was a prime example of this. Hraba explained how she was part of a student protest at Swarthmore College that demanded the school do more to protect its students.

However, Tracy warned about the limitations for universities.

“I’ll just say it up front, it’s a very difficult situation for schools to deal with,” Tracy said. “It’s important to know how much universities can do. They can only expel at the most.”

The fourth panelist, Elana Newman, argued that journalists should be careful in what they promise and how they handle what they can control. Headlines, and accompanying media, and how people will interpret the information is all out of the hands of a journalist, Newman argued.

The discussion proceeded toward explaining how the panelists believed journalists should report sexual assaults, including word choice.

The event ended with a series of questions and answers.