Marchello Carlucci
COM327-010
April 1st, 2017
Dr. Grapsy
Duke Lacrosse Case
When the Duke Lacrosse rape scandal first came out it caught everyones attention and was a very big deal for society, as most rape cases typically are. Although there was no evidence or proof of anything that these lacrosse boys actually did, it was believed just from the words of this colored girl saying that these three white college boys raped her. Now we obviously know today that this wasn't true and that this was a bunch of fake news, but before it finally came out that these boys were innocent, everyone believed that these three men had indeed rapped this girl. The girls attorney and everyone jumped to conclusions on this case so fast and it was so hyped up because of peoples generalizations. Everyone immediately believed that these stuck up, privileged white college lacrosse boys would go and do this to some innocent women of color. This accusation really ruined these boys lives for the time being, based just off this one girls words and society did the rest of the work from there. News like this is a very big deal and is heard and read about almost world wide, having everyone in the country look and think of you with disgust when in reality these boys did nothing wrong just based off of one girls words and the media reporting there side and then society does the rest. A lot of this is a thanks to media and the way that they report the news, although people will assume what they will when they here stories, the media puts a different spin on these sort of scandals and incorporate other aspects of the situation that aren't relevant creating inaccurate representations. For example there was even a book made about the situation written by William D. Cohan’s ,The Price of Silence: The Duke Lacrosse Scandal, the Power of the Elite, and the Corruption of Our Great Universities. “The book is at once a masterwork of reporting and a devastating critique of a university that has lost its way.”(newyorktimes). The fact that the school was given this image and representation of decline and failure just because of three boys on a sports team were wrongly accused is terrible. There is fake news all around the world every day involving any number of different things, where this news is typically just news reporters and writers taking there opinions and what they know people will bit on and giving it to them. Writers and reporters use there own vocabulary and opinions and have the ability to persuade societies opinions. In situations like these where the news is something that seems everyone believes, media attacks at it more than not. Another quote I found in the New York Times stated “..the three accused players were savages, patently guilty of an act of profound sexual violence..”(thenewyorktimes). The vocabulary that is used to describe these men is wrong and inaccurately stated being that these boys never did anything wrong and this individual female along with the media created this huge fake story.
