The Jeffrey Epstein story has been in and out of the headlines for years, but in a very particular way. Most news articles ask a specific question: what powerful men might be on “the list”?
The headlines focus on unnamed elites and those who may be exposed or shamed, rather than on the people whose suffering made the case news in the first place: the girls and young women Epstein abused and trafficked.
Right now, history is entering a new phase. A federal judge has authorized the Justice Department to declassify grand jury transcripts and other evidence from Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking case. A court in Florida has authorized the release of grand jury records from a federal investigation into Epstein himself, all under the new Epstein Files Transparency Act. Passed in November 2025, that law gives the Justice Department 30 days to release nearly all files related to Epstein. The deadline is December 19.
Journalists and the public are watching to see what those documents will reveal beyond the names we already know, and whether a long-rumored client list will finally materialize.
At the same time, there was an avalanche of reports focused on the survivors. Some outlets, including CNN, have regularly featured Epstein survivors and their lawyers reacting to new developments. Those segments are a reminder that there is another story available, one that treats the women at the center of the case as sources of understanding, not just evidence of someone else’s fall from grace.
These coexisting plots reveal a deeper problem. Following the height of the #MeToo movement, the public conversation about sexual violence and the news has clearly changed. More survivors are now speaking publicly under their own names, and some media outlets have adapted.
However, long-standing conventions about what counts as news—conflict, scandal, elite individuals, and dramatic turns in a case—continue to shape which aspects of sexual violence make the headlines and which remain on the margins.
That tension raises a question: In a case where the law largely allows naming victims of sexual violence, and where some survivors explicitly ask to be seen, why do journalistic practices so often withhold names or treat victims as secondary to the story?
What the law allows – and why newsrooms rarely do it
The US Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government generally cannot punish the media for publishing truthful information taken from public records, even when that information is the name of a rape victim.
When states attempted in the 1970s and 1980s to punish media outlets that identified victims using names that had already appeared in court documents or police reports, the court held that such punishments violated the First Amendment.
Newsrooms responded by tightening containment, not loosening it. Under pressure from feminist activists, victim advocates, and their own staff, many organizations adopted policies against identifying victims of sexual assault, especially without consent.
Journalism codes of ethics now urge journalists to “minimize harm,” be cautious when naming victims of sexual crimes, and consider the risk of retraumatization and stigma.
In other words, American law permits what editorial codes of ethics advise against.
You may be interested in: Epstein files may finally come to light this week, but details about high-profile friends could be missing
How anonymity became the norm and #MeToo complicated it
For much of the 20th century, rape victims were routinely named in American media coverage, reflecting unequal gender norms. Victims’ reputations were treated as public property, while men accused of sexual violence were portrayed with sympathy and detail.
In the 1970s and 1980s, feminist movements drew attention to underreporting and intense stigma. Activists created crisis centers and rape helplines, documented how rarely sexual assault cases ended in court proceedings, and argued that if a woman feared seeing her name in the newspaper, she might never report it.
Lawmakers passed “rape protection laws” that limited the use of a victim’s sexual history in court. Some states went further by banning the publication of victims’ names.
In response to these laws, as well as feminist pressure, most newsrooms in the 1980s adopted a default rule of not naming victims.
More recently, the #MeToo movement added a shift. Survivors in workplaces, politics, and entertainment chose to speak publicly, often under their own names, about serial abuse and institutional cover-ups. Their stories forced newsrooms to rethink assumptions about who should lead a story.
However, #MeToo also developed within existing journalistic conventions. Investigations tended to focus on high-profile men, spectacular falls from power and moments of reckoning, leaving less room for the quieter, continuing realities of recovery, legal limbo and community response.
The unintended effects of keeping survivors faceless
There are good reasons for policies that do not name victims.
Survivors may face harassment, job discrimination, or danger from abusers if they are identified. For minors, there are additional concerns about long-term digital evidence. In communities where sexual violence carries intense social stigma, anonymity can be a lifesaver.
But research on media framing suggests that naming patterns matter. When coverage focuses on the alleged perpetrator as a complex individual—someone with a name, career, and history—while referring to “a victim” or “accusers” in the singular, the public is more likely to empathize with the suspect and examine the victim’s behavior.
In high-profile cases like Epstein’s, that dynamic intensifies. Powerful men linked to him are named, dissected and speculated upon. The survivors, unless they try very hard to move forward, remain a blur in the background. The anonymity meant to protect actually flattens your experience. Different stories of grooming, coercion and survival are reduced to a single faceless category.
Also read: White House accuses Democrats of wanting to ‘create false narrative’ with Trump and Epstein photos
A window to what we believe is ‘news’
That flattening is part of what makes the current moment in Epstein’s story so revealing. The intrigue is less about whether more victims will be heard and more about what the name will make influential men. It becomes a story whose names are reported as news.
Carefully anonymizing survivors as they eagerly pursue a client list of powerful men inadvertently sends a message about who matters most.
The Epstein scandal, in that context, is not primarily about what was done to girls and young women over many years, but about who among the elite might feel embarrassed, implicated or exposed.
A more survivor-centered journalistic approach would start from a different set of questions, including asking which survivors have chosen to speak publicly and why, and how the media can protect anonymity when requested, but convey the individuality of the victim.
These questions are not just ethical. They are about journalistic judgment. They ask editors and reporters to consider whether the most important part of a story like Epstein’s is the next famous name mentioned or the continuing lives of the people whose abuses made that name in the news at all.
*Stephanie A. Martin is Professor of Public Affairs at Boise State University.
This article was originally published on The Conversation
Do you use Facebook more? Follow us to always be informed