Sunday, February 18, 2007

Another female teacher charged with seducing a boy, but does this reporting go too far?

It seem as though we are experiencing a bizarre national wave of female teachers seducing their young male students. The latest occurred right here in our Hoosier state, and while the basic storyline of this case may sound familiar, must we know all the details? Consider this reporting from the the online version of Morgan County's Reporter-Times:

Martinsville High School English teacher Cynthia Marie Rynard has been charged with child seduction for allegedly having oral sex with a student. Rynard, 32, turned herself in Wednesday night at the Morgan County Jail. She's being held on no bond prior to her initial court hearing. According to a probable cause affidavit filed by Martinsville Police Department patrolman Rob Townsend, the alleged contact occurred in the Morgan Monroe Forest. . .

On Nov. 15, [the male student]met Rynard, he said, at a business on Southview Drive. She picked him up in her van and they drove out into the southern part of the county. The boy said they parked and talked. They began kissing but it was awkward in the front seat of her van so they moved into the back. At one point, the boy said Rynard pulled his pants down and performed oral sex on him. The boy said he did not ejaculate and that Rynard quit because she had to get back to school.

What public interest does it serve to know whether the sex act was completed? Are we not routinely spared gory details when local reporters cover traffic fatalities? Did it occur to no one that the boy's classmates and mother would surely read this report? To the paper's credit, the objectionable sentence did not appear in the print version of the story. To see the whole story, click here.

3 comments:

"Ms. Cornelius" said...

Beee-yuck. I don't know why we have to know that, either. Is it to help make the case that it was rape since he didn't enjoy it? Becuase it doesn't amtter if it went to completion or not-- it's RAPE. The boy is not an object of envy-- he is a victim. End of story.

Anonymous said...

So it's not only the Florida babes that are doing this!

Look forward to comparing rural Indiana and rural Florida.

IU 1976

Anonymous said...

As a journalist, Rob, I think it would have seemed obvious to include this detail. I doubt the reporter even thought about it. Whether it should have been in or not is the editor's call.

Shaping your reporting out of concerns that a boy's family might read it and find out something they didn't want to know is a dangerous road to start down. Where would we stop?

My guess is that this information came from some legal document, maybe a police statement or deposition transcript. I doubt the reporter asked the questions necessary to elicit this info.