Local and national media outlets have swarmed Main West Campus this week, seeking answers and attempting to ensure that their audiences have the latest information pertaining to allegations that three members of the men's lacrosse team raped and assaulted an exotic dancer at an off-campus party March 13.
Internet website Google News currently has web links to more than 1,500 articles related to the incident. The London Times featured a story about the incident in their international section Thursday, and The New York Times' March 29 front-page article about the controversy was the second-most e-mailed story for the publication by that evening.
As some media outlets left Duke Thursday night, community members began to reflect on the coverage.
"Some of them, you don't know where the next arrow is going to come from," said John Burness, senior vice president for public and government relations about media coverage of the incident. "Until the investigation is completed, there is going to be more of this."
Although the current onslaught of attention might befuddle some members of the community, top brass said they know exactly why Duke is under the microscope.
Burness explained that because the incident involves various controversial facets-alleged sexual abuse, off-campus partying, as well as socio-economic and racial factors-it has easily become fodder for news coverage. "It's almost like a perfect storm," Burness said.
Kenneth Rogerson, a media expert with the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, said the situation would have been newsworthy locally no matter the circumstances, but other elements have catapulted the issue into the ranks of national intrigue.
"The main reaction initially was that the team was so highly ranked," he said, explaining that national interest continued because the team's silence resulted in only one side of the story was being told.
Rogerson noted that he does not think the media coverage is extraneous.
"Do we give people what they want or give people what they need to know?" he asked. "Too much [coverage]? No. Too little? No. It is what it is."
Rogerson added that although he would call some of the reporting "scrappy"-specifically the publishing of criminal records of 15 lacrosse team members-he does not think coverage has been biased.
"[Media outlets] are picking up on things they think are necessary," he said, noting that sensationalist issues followed by race and class controversies certainly trigger media inquiry.
In response to the rape allegations and subsequent media frenzy, the lacrosse team's roster was pulled from goduke.com. The players also closed their facebook.com profiles earlier this week.
The removal of personal information from the sites has made it more difficult than usual for reporters around the nation to find players' names, contact information and photographs.
Some media outlets, such as MSNBC, left campus Thursday and will return when the DNA results come back next week. Other stations' representatives said they were unable to tell if the end of their Duke visit was near.
"People have said 'How long are you going to be here?', stuff like that. It's pretty early," Anthony Soziol, a freelance sound technician with ESPN, said Thursday. "When it turns into a circus-as I'm sure this will-and there are vans parked on the sidewalk, that's when people get annoyed."
For some students, however, the media are already a source of annoyance.
Many complained about having to weave around vans, cameras, lights and reporters to make their way to classes.
"It's no longer a Duke issue because they're being invasive and trying to make it seem like a race riot in the Jim Crow South. It's a question of accountability," junior Doha Mekki. "I don't really appreciate reporters asking, 'Do you feel violated?'"
Jared Mueller contributed to this story.
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