Building trust with Epstein survivors needs empathy and self-awareness, journalists say

The Epstein files are not only about politicians, but also what they reveal about abuse, institutions and inequality in the United Status, two journalists said at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia on April 16.

Wallace spent four years working with Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre  to tell her story in the memoir published last year.

Building trust and getting to know each other is needed for collaboration, Wallace said, detailing how she co-authored the book Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice.

In a separate panel on the Epstein files, Monique El-Faizy, a Paris-based journalist and author, said that journalists need self-awareness about the impact of their work and understanding how publication changes how a story feels for the person inside it.

“This is when we ask women to tell us their stories, they will be exposed,” she said. “If they saw themselves in a newspaper or see it on TV, they feel undressed; they feel naked; they feel exposed.”

“This is your career, but it’s my life,” said Elizabeth Stein, a Human Trafficking Specialist and Survivor Advocate speaking on a panel analyzing media coverage of Epstein. She said journalists should use empathy in building responsible journalism.

“We need to learn how to handle tragedy reporting compassionately in the media so that more people feel comfortable coming forward,” she said.

Spending six years investigating Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s child sex trafficking ring, Lucia Osborne-Crowley said journalists should respect boundaries when interviewing survivors of tragedy.

“What you need to not do is violate their consent in any way or cross a single boundary that they set down because then you are just retraumatising them,” she said.

She added journalists should follow survivor’s requests for breaks or limits and stop forcing them to answer questions.