30 May 1. The complaint
In her interview, Babin-Fenske said this incident was not her first time filing a similar complaint to the Sudbury Star. She told J-Source that the article “Sudbury Man cleared of sex charges,” written by Harold Carmichael, published on December 1, 2017, reflected the same problem.1 Carmichael, Harold. “Subury Man Cleared of Sex Charges.” The Sudbury Star, 1 December, 2017,https://www.thesudburystar.com/2017/12/02/sudbury-man-cleared-of-sex-charges
She says she emailed the paper about her concerns regarding the inclusion of explicit details in the article shortly after it was published. The Sudbury Star did not reply, nor did they revise their article, she told the National NewsMedia Council (NNC) in a filed complaint afterwards.
In her complaint, Babin-Fenske wrote: “When children read newspaper stories online, they should be sheltered by some of the details. When adults read stories online, they really don’t want to feel like they are reading a romance novel. These details are extremely descriptive and unnecessary to give us a factual and accurate story. I don’t need to know about the oral sex, when the man is finished and how she just lied there.”
- 1Carmichael, Harold. “Subury Man Cleared of Sex Charges.” The Sudbury Star, 1 December, 2017,https://www.thesudburystar.com/2017/12/02/sudbury-man-cleared-of-sex-charges