Last November, in a small east Texas town, an 11-year-old girl was allegedly gang raped by a pack of 18 men, ranging in age from teenagers to a 27-year-old. The assault was recorded on several cell phones, and the recordings eventually found their way to teachers in the victim's school and then to the police.

It's a horrible story, made more so by the New York Times coverage, which seemingly empathizes with the attackers while indirectly placing blame on the victim. There's this:

Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands — known as the Quarters — said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.

“Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?” said Ms. Harrison, one of a handful of neighbors who would speak on the record. “How can you have an 11-year-old child missing down in the Quarters?”

And this:

Among them is, if the allegations are proved, how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?

Apparently, it was the victim's taste in trollop clothing and her mother's inattention that drew the men, kicking and screaming, into assaulting her.

And then there's this:

“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

The article expresses no empathy for the victim—if anything, the victim is referenced clinically—aside from a brief mention at the bottom pertaining to church prayer services.

Bloggers and change.org are demanding the NYTimes issue an apology for its appalling coverage. They refuse. Give them hell here.

Curtsies to Cassalyn.