02.21.08

ABC Primetime’s Expose of Stepfamilies: Nets a Lawsuit for Diane Sawyer & Company

Posted in Dawn's Writing, News at 7:28 am by Dawn Miller

In 2006, ABC Primetime viewers watching a “Stepfamilies in Crisis” expose, were horrified to see Kyle Nelson, then 15, being assaulted and screamed at by her father and stepmother. One of the most heart-rending scenes showed preschool-aged stepsiblings praying loudly at the dinner table to drown out the sounds of profanity and abuse being heaped on Kyle. I even wrote about it in my column.

The Associated Press reports today that Kyle, now 20 years old, is suing ABC News, its parent corporation (the Walt Disney Company), popular news anchor Diane Sawyer, ABC President Dave Weston, producer David Sloan, and three psychologists associated with the episode. According to the Associated Press:

Attorney Matthew Norfolk, who filed the suit on Nelson’s behalf, said the young woman suffers lasting effects from the abuse and ABC’s airing of it….The lawsuit seeks punitive damages; a permanent injunction against ABC showing the film of the abuse again; and a judgment compelling ABC to fulfill its promises to provide the woman with counseling, Norfolk said. “We maintain that a situation of continual, ongoing child abuse could have been stopped by ABC,” Norfolk told the Plattsburgh Press-Republican. 

The lawsuit requests damages on eight claims relating to the “Primetime” segment, including failure to rescue the girl; promotion of a hostile, hazardous, unsafe and abusive atmosphere; invasion of privacy; failure to report abuse; and publication of the girl’s condition and mental-health status.

The abuse was captured within hundreds of hours of footage filmed by ABC (with permission from the adults in the family) at the family’s home. By the time the special aired, Kyle had moved out of the house and in with her grandparents. 

She moved out of her own volition - not because ABC had reported the abuse to child protection authorities - ABC was way too busy raking in advertising revenue to worry about a teenage girl’s pain and ongoing abuse. By the time the special aired, it was too late for prosecutors to bring abuse charges, as the statute of limitations prevented prosecution of the abuse Kyle had suffered when it was filmed four years later.

After the story aired, ABC’s website was so deluged with thousands of viewer comments and outrage that the network actually had to shut down its viewer comment feature. Many of them called for correspondent Diane Sawyer’s resignation, and it provoked some ethical hand-wringing within the journalism community - where even defenders of Diane Sawyer said they thought she screwed up. After hearing from Kyle Nelson’s family how truly in the dark ABC tried to keep them about the existence of the videotape showing the abuse, even Sawyer’s defenders were ready to point a finger in judgment. ABC execs knew - if they shared the tape with a counselor who was a mandatory child abuse reporter or a family member who shared it with a district attorney - they would lose access to the tape. Their great expose would have been up in smoke, if they had done the right thing.

Meanwhile, a tender and abused teenage girl was dragged into the public eye. Kyle Nelson had to issue a statement asking ABC viewers to not attack her father and even appeared on Good Morning America to let viewers know she was OK. ABC even issued a statement with her teen’s comments to try to quell the hubbub. CNN even had to cover the fuss.

At the time, ABC said it was providing counseling for the entire family, Kyle’s lawsuit alleges that ABC did not fulfill this promise to her. The girl stopped attending counseling because her therapist shared information with her stepmother repeatedly.

Let’s hope Kyle Nelson gets justice for her exploitation by ABC Primetime, and that the people who bungled this will be held accountable.

Additional news stories:

• Elizabethtown Woman Sues ABC News - WPTZ, February 21, 2008
• Reality-Like TV Show Results in Lawsuit, Placid Woman Beaten as Cameras Roll - The Press Republican, February 20, 2008
• ABC News Transcript from Good Morning America - ABC, April 25, 2006
• Calls for Sawyer to Resign after Teen Beating Report - Fox News, April 24, 2006
• ABC Primetime Exposes Stepfamilies on the Brink - TheStepfamilyLife, April 24, 2006

Bloggers chiming in:

• Well, it appears this isn’t over, February 20, 2008 - ABC is messing with my sanity blog
• Save Diane Sawyer’s Job and Kyle’s Family Speaks - When a Journalist Should Intervene Part 2 - Po Bonson’s Blog
• Viewer comments about the original episode (not an ABC website)

 

 

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