The New York Times missed a significant opportunity in a December episode of its popular podcast “The Daily.” The episode covers a rape trial in France and the female victim at the center of it. The journalists talk at length about the victim’s decision to be publicly identified, but they never consider the role her identity plays in how that decision was perceived.
While this omission doesn’t invalidate the reporting or the analysis, “The Daily” missed an opportunity to examine the larger context of this case and how societies react to rape accusations.
In the Dec. 18, 2024, episode, titled “France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero,” host Michael Barbaro and correspondent Catherine Porter discuss the role of Gisèle Pelicot in the trial of her husband and 50 other men charged with raping her. Pelicot’s husband, Dominique, pleaded guilty to drugging his wife and raping her as well as inviting dozens of other men to rape her. All of the co-defendants were also convicted on a range of charges, including rape, attempted rape and sexual assault.
Gisèle Pelicot has been rightfully praised in France for choosing to publicize her identity and opening the trial to journalists and the public, which is not necessarily a given in the French justice system. Barbaro and Porter focus their conversation on this decision and Pelicot’s identity as a 71-year-old mother and grandmother, living a life in the south of France that they describe as “idyllic.”
But they fail to consider the way Pelicot’s identity likely influenced public reaction to the abuses she suffered and the way she responded.
In 1986, sociologist and criminologist Nils Christie proposed the concept of an “ideal victim,” meaning the type of crime victim who is most likely to draw widespread public sympathy. Christie theorized that ideal victims would be people seen as weak, respectable, and not involved in any activity that would make them a contributor to their own victimization.
Gisèle Pelicot fits that description perfectly. You can see it in the way Porter describes the first day of the trial, as Pelicot comes into the courtroom with her lawyers: “From the first moment, Madame Pelicot has been literally, the picture of poise and grace and calm. She’s like a classic Parisian grandmother. Her clothing is perfectly appointed, not too beautiful, but also just neat and tidy. Her hair, she’s got a nice bob. Her head is held high.”
Coverage from other news outlets mirrored this language, describing Pelicot as a “diminutive presence in the Avignon courthouse, clad in tailored shirts and fine scarves,” noted her “courage, grace and stoicism,” and described her as “a pensioner and a grandmother without pretensions, but with self-respect.”
It shouldn’t matter that Pelicot was a grandmother, how she styled her hair, and whether she was poised or sobbing. I don’t think that Barbaro or Porter believe these things matter. But they never comment on these attributes in a thoughtful way.
But that needed to be part of their conversation because there are still many misconceptions about rape, what the crime looks like and who can be a victim.
Researchers have found that a victim’s demeanor during a trial can affect their credibility with a jury. Experts say it is still common to hold the false belief that a victim’s behavior — such as whether they fought back or were intoxicated — is a factor in determining if an assault is actually rape.
In the past decade, media coverage has acknowledged these beliefs and sometimes perpetuated them. In 2015, model Janice Dickinson spoke to The Guardian about joining dozens of other women to accuse comedian Bill Cosby of drugging and assaulting them. The profile acknowledged Dickinson’s “reality show persona — raucous, sarcastic and camply melodramatic” and its perception in “the court of public opinion, wherein Dickinson is an easy target for derision.”
A few years later, in 2017, Rose McGowan was among the women who went on the record in The New York Times story that broke the sexual assault allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Not long after, the Los Angeles Times acknowledged that McGowan’s outspoken nature and fading career were reasons her previous statements about systemic problems in Hollywood for women were ignored: “Few people took notice. Many dismissed them as the rantings of an actress relegated to the fringes of Hollywood.” McGowan told ABC News that her acting career was seen as a barrier to pursuing legal action:
McGowan said she met with a female criminal attorney about pressing charges, but was talked out of it. “She told me, ‘You’re an actress. You did a sex scene. You’re done. You’ll never win,’ and she was right. She’s not wrong,” McGowan said.
“The Daily” previously discussed the complicated perception of rape victims in the public and the media. In its Feb. 25, 2020, episode, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey reported about two guilty verdicts against Weinstein for felony sex crime charges. Less than five minutes into the episode, Kantor addressed it: “There’s a saying in sex crimes prosecution that there are no perfect victims. And what people mean by that is that these stories don’t unfold in neat scripts.”
She also reported that the prosecutor referenced this paradigm in her closing argument: “They’re also making a kind of plea for a different world. A different, more nuanced, more humane way of looking at rape victims. They’re saying, look, sometimes their behavior is contradictory. … Joan Illuzzi, the prosecutor, says, come enter this new world. Come enter this new and more nuanced understanding of who rape victims are and how they behave.”
According to Edison Research, in 2024 “The Daily” was the third-most-popular podcast in the U.S. Last year, Barbaro told an audience at University of California, Riverside, that “The Daily” averages 3 million daily listeners. That’s a lot of people.
It would have been meaningful and valuable for Barbaro and Porter to reference that specific aspects of Gisèle Pelicot’s identity and behavior made it easier for people to hear her. This conversation would not have needed to be lengthy. A few sentences, perhaps referencing that an estimated 80% of rape victims know their assaulter, could have added awareness that not all sexual assault victims are perceived and believed the same way that Pelicot was.
This rape case in France is an important news story that deserves to be covered on a podcast like “The Daily.” However, the episode lacked acknowledgment of common misconceptions about rape that shape public reactions. Neglecting this aspect made the story seem disconnected from the last decade of reporting on high-profile sexual assault cases, including some involving victims who said they were drugged. “The Daily” must continue to cover stories like this, but next time its hosts should take a few minutes to recognize the larger societal context.
