It is a terrible and scary thing that happened to Shannon Burnett and Courtney Bradshaw. But there is a reason for running the victims’ names: credibility. How would you feel if in other stories, comments and opinion were attributed to just “an SMU student” or “a local man”?

Wouldn’t you question the validity of the reports? The girls were not targeted for who they are; the incident likely would have happened to whomever was in that place at that time.

Therefore, they likely aren’t in danger; running their names does not do any harm to them. This is an issue journalists deal with daily and the decisions on running victims’ (and criminals’) names are not taken lightly.

Those girls should be thankful they are OK and they and their sorority should use their experience to better educate SMU women of how they can protect themselves against crime, not waste time hatin’ on the DC for doing something major newspapers do daily: getting the facts straight.

Courtney Alieksaites
SMU Alum 2002
Editor, Longview News-Journal