This is the third entry surrounding the press treatment of the Russell Brand story. You can get the first and the second entries here.
In looking over the sweeping controversy of entertainment figure Russell Brand being accused of multiple incidents of sexual assault we need to analyze not just the charges but the actions of the press. I will show the very selective nature of the approach to these matters by news outlets. Extending from yesterday where I laid out the way the media permitted Harvey Weinstein to run rampant for years, there are more examples of predatory behavior being covered differently, based on who is involved.
The “expose” the press has delivered about Russell Brand’s alleged rapes is deeply questionable. These involve women who mostly were in a relationship of some order with Brand, and while they contain some troubling accounts they also carry enough questions to demand more be investigated before stampeding forward with the blaring headlines of “RAPE”.
To go over the accusations briefly:
One states he raped her against the wall as she was leaving his residence. She went to a rape crisis center following the incident. Text messages show a discussion where it sounded more like a discussion about his not wearing a condom rather than her being raped.
One reported when she was 16 (Britain’s age of consent) she became involved in a consensual relationship, which she now regrets. She details a time he forced himself on her.
One gave a sketchy testimony of somehow ending up in Brand’s bedroom and he attempted to force himself on her. Amid her conflicting details, she states “I think he had his hands down my trousers.”
One was not a testimonial but a reference to a book written by a former lover of Brand, Jordan Martin. She wrote nearly a decade ago about a time he had groped her in a hotel.
One told of an incident with a worker where Brand allegedly flashed her in his dressing room.
Again, there could be findings of criminality, but we do not know. The authorities have not been involved in any of these incidents, including the example of the woman who visited a rape clinic. How did that take place, over a decade ago, but there was no police involvement all that time? These are all incidents demanding more questions and clarifications, and then having the authorities confirm what has taken place. The rush of the press to assign guilt here is exposed by the very coordination behind the reports.
The Times UK touted the extent of its investigation into Brand. It was a lengthy and exhaustive process.
Over the past few years, reporters have interviewed hundreds of sources who knew or worked with Brand: ex-girlfriends and their friends and family, comedians and other celebrities, people who worked with him on radio and TV, and senior staff at the BBC, Channel 4 and other media organizations.
But now let us step back and look this over objectively. The outlet spent years on this, and spoke with literally hundreds of individuals, and they came up with these five examples. One was already established in published form, and it never previously led to anything. Another gave a testimony that she did not even know if anything happened that probably would be dismissed outright from a courtroom. Only two of these can be seen as close to a rape scenario, but even those have doubts attached. This is the best the outlets managed to find, on a man publicly known as a lothario figure.
Yet in other instances, we see no such dogged investigations, because the individual seen as committing the questionable acts is from a preferred side of the spectrum. I showed yesterday how more than a decade passed with the press knowing of Harvey Weinstein’s horrific behavior. Even as Ronan Farrow had compiled his story with numerous women NBC News actually passed on the story, before he went on to earn a Pulitzer for his report. But there have been more egregious examples of this Hollywood and Media double standard.
Following the Weinstein story exploding, a number of activist organizations for women sprouted up. One of the most prominent was Time’s Up!, formed by Hollywood power brokers and names from journalism. Established to address workplace misogyny and sexual discrimination in entertainment it spread grew into other industries as the group’s charter would focus on giving women more of a presence in the workplace and protecting them with legal defense support.
But amazingly this organization, ran entirely by women, would expose itself by violating its own charter. When a doctor in its medical field division was accused of harassing a Times Up! Employee, the group did not support her, out of fear of how it would reflect. Then things turned more contradictory.
As the organization swelled in size and influence when Lt. Governor of Virginia Justin Fairfax was accused by women of sexual harassment, Time’s Up! Was nowhere to be found. Here was a prominent story that concerned the group’s cause directly, but the Democrat was not addressed at all. In an identical fashion, when Tara Reade came forward with her accusation of sexual harassment she endured from then-candidate Joe Biden, Time’s Up! openly declared it would not support her. One probable reason was that one of the highest executives in the group was Tina Tchen, who hailed from the Obama administration.
But then it became worse. When Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment scandal was blowing up this outfit did get involved. They now wish they had not. It was revealed that the organization charged with aiding victims of sexual assault was actually consulting the Cuomo team on how to defend himself against such charges. Then Tchen had to step down when her denials of knowledge of this help were exposed as lies, and she was found to have halted planned assistance by Time’s Up! for the victims of Cuomo. (After mass resignations following these scandals Time’s Up! officially dissolved.)
This serves to show that often these kinds of reports and charges in the entertainment and publishing realms are driven as much by politics than by justice, perhaps more so. When you have a group with the very specific goal of aiding female assault victims taking steps to ignore their needs and even assisting their aggressor because of where they are placed politically, you see where the primary focus rests.
Is Russell Brand guilty of sexual assault? It is possible. But this being a coordinated and targeted assault by the press complex is just as possible. Looking at how the Weinstein case was long shielded, and how a sex harassment group eventually made victims a secondary concern, at best, we see that these types of accusations cannot be accepted as anything but speculation at this point.
The most dangerous thing to do at this moment is to place blind trust in an industry that has shown itself unworthy of that confidence. If it becomes emboldened by this type of witch hunt becoming successful then these will become a more common occurrence used on preferred targets.