Guiding your newsroom through sexual violence coverage – lessons from the case of Gisèle Pelicot

The Gisèle Pelicot story marked France and the whole world last year. Over a nine-year period from 2011 to 2020, her husband, Dominique Pelicot, crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into his then-wife’s food and invited dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious in the village of Mazan, south of France. 

The trial of Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men accused of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault began in September 2024 and concluded in December. Dominique Pelicot was finally sentenced to 20 years in prison, and 50 men were found guilty alongside him. This trial was covered massively by French media and international outlets that sent reporters to Avignon, where the trial was held. 

“It was impressive. It’s something that will remain marked in my memory,” said Cécile Hautefeuille, a journalist who covered the Mazan trial for Médiapart. “This trial was also a turning point in the media treatment of this kind of topic. We heard a lot more about rape culture and then also stopped presenting rape as something that is committed by monsters, but showed that ordinary men, as they are called, could be the [perpetrators]. It was quite striking in the media treatment.”

By refusing to close the door of her trial and renouncing her legal right to anonymity, Gisèle Pelicot has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence. So much so that the American magazine Time distinguished her as one of the women of the year 2025. “What was very positive is that the media did not question the victim’s testimony during this affair, which is not always common,” said Marine Forestier, journalist and co-founder of La Fronde, a feminist training agency, particularly for the media.

“In this kind of trial, journalists can have difficulty maintaining distance from the defence’s statements, but in this case there was also a sober treatment of the husband’s remark.” Forestier also noted that very few caricatures and humour have been made in the media regarding this affair, which is also a good thing. “It’s always delicate humour on themes of sexual violence or domestic violence, because in reality, one can end up taking the aggressor’s point of view or euphemising the violence.” 

Still progress to be made

Although the affair has received good media coverage overall, there is still room for improvement. Forestier noted, for example, that some media outlets failed to put the defendants’ comments into context during reporting. “We have seen quite a few cases where a media outlet has an exclusive interview with one of the accused. He was able to express himself, defend himself, justify his actions, and often shift the blame, without any counterbalance from the journalist on that subject,” explained Forestier.

“This is not new, but it’s problematic. We need to provide perspective to our readers with an expert to say that people who commit sexual violence shirk responsibility and find another culprit. These experts are important to serve as counterweights to the statements of the accused.”

The affair also drew attention to drug-facilitated sexual assault and issues around consent. Many media outlets described Gisèle Pelicot as courageous or as a heroine, while Dominique Pelicot was described as a monster – adjectives that the media should avoid in future coverage of this type of affair. 

“It’s very delicate to use these terms. The risk is to create the figure of the good victim of sexual violence, who must be dignified and shouldn’t scream or cry. Whereas, in fact, there is no good or bad victim,” explained Forestier. “It’s dangerous to have a kind of victim model because those who don’t fit into that category could, as a result, be treated much worse, both by society and by the justice system.”

Claire Ruffio, a doctoral student in political science at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, who specialises in the media coverage of rape, notes that this is not something new in the media. “We find it in almost all the articles, at least for 40 years. We always have this need to have the real good victim, the perfect victim, and the real good culprit, who is either crazy or has a legal case. Both parties must be present with really quite marked traits. Media has difficulties providing nuances,” said Ruffio. 

The importance of words, headlines, and pictures 

Journalists covering this type of sensitive subject must be careful of the words they use, because this can have repercussions on society or even public opinion. However, Ruffio notes a profound change during the Pelicot affair. “Using expressions such as male violence, to talk about male domination, rape culture, and sexist violence, without the master of quotation marks, as if ultimately these were notions that are not in dispute, is really new and an improvement,” said Ruffio.

The choice of headlines concerning sexual violence stories has also evolved in the right direction, according to the journalist Hautefeuille.

The treatment of femicides has also evolved in the way we headline them

Cécile Hautefeuille, a journalist who covered the Mazan trial for Médiapart

“We no longer talk about crimes of passion or make jokes with headlines saying that, for example, she forgets her yoghurt, and he smashes her head with an iron. Before, you could see this kind of thing a lot. Now we don’t read that anymore.”

The images, often used as illustrations in articles covering sexual violence, are also very important to consider, according to Forestier. “The images say a lot of things. When it’s a very high-profile trial, there are photos. But for smaller trials, often covered by local press, the media will use pictures of the courthouse or a police car. These photos have their bias because they externalise the violence, particularly domestic violence. It seems like it’s happening outside, but in reality, it’s in the homes where the violence occurs.”

Training journalists 

In recent years, more newsrooms have been training journalists to report on sexual violence. Some journalists even adopted it as their beat. A change that has become more pronounced since the MeToo movement. With La Fronde Marine Forestier train reporters for better coverage of sexual violence. “We try to provide them some basic scientific and statistical knowledge on sexual violence so everyone can understand how domestic violence works or what the dynamics of femicides are,” explained Forestier. 

The training is also an opportunity to discuss editorial choices, such as how to cover an athlete who performs well but also faces accusations of sexual violence. “What editorial choice do we make? How do we talk about sports performance without putting aside the accusations? We are more in the realm of supporting editorial teams rather than training to truly create editorial charts that provide coherence and direction for journalists, specifically on how to handle this type of subject,” said Forestier.

Finally, journalists who cover this type of sexual violence must also protect themselves. “Journalists can experience vicarious trauma, it’s a form of trauma when you hear accounts of violence. So it’s also important to take care of oneself,” explained Forestier. “In our training on investigating sexual violence, we included a section on how to interview people without retraumatising them, but also without traumatising ourselves. One of the pieces of advice is to perhaps not deal with these subjects throughout your career.”

Source of the cover photo: Mario Azzi via Unsplash

---