Sensitivity training for AP

The news business today isn't what it was when I started back in the day, but I'm still pretty old school when it comes to some things. Like not victimizing the victim. The AP has a exclusive today about how Olympic swimmer Margaret Hoelzer was molested as a child.

Now, among the things we should be taking from this story are enlightenment about assault on children and how some kids don't even realize what was done to them until years later; a deep appreciation for the sorrow, anger and frustration this young woman has borne for nearly 20 years and also for her strength to succeed so spectacularly in spite of it; but mostly for her courage to share the story in the first place.

Then the writer -- the version I linked to didn't have a byline -- says: "Her message will be so much more poignant now that she's come clean about her past."

Comes clean.

You come clean about stealing hubcaps or throwing rocks at cats. You come clean about using HGH. You come clean about things you did wrong, not wrongs done to you.

Yes, I'm nitpicking. It's one sentence buried near the bottom where most people won't read it. But I did. Margaret Hoelzer probably will. And her friends and family. And other victims. And what they see is the slightest implication -- wholly unintended of course -- of fault.

The last thing anyone who knows me well would call me is PC. This is more about the decline of language or at least the awareness of the meaning of the words being written. More and more, the emphasis is getting the story, getting the story, getting the story and once it's out there, the story suffers because nobody paid attention to what it says.

Margaret Hoelzer will undoubtedly inspire other young victims to unburden themselves and confide their stories. Let's hope none of them will think twice because of something they read in the newspaper or online.