"Outrage" has been the operative word to describe community sentiment in Durham in the past week. And justifiably so, if the allegations against members of the Duke men's lacrosse team are even close to true.

The community has risen in angry protest against the ugly story of sexual assault, brutality and racism that has drawn national attention and tarnished Duke's blue-ribbon reputation. The News & Observer first brought the issue to the public's attention and has heightened community anger with aggressive follow-up reporting, including an exclusive interview with the alleged victim and publishing the prior arrest records of lacrosse team members.

But the reports also have produced some alternative views that question the newspaper's coverage of the controversy.

One concern is the March 25 interview with the alleged victim of the assault. Because the paper has a policy of not identifying victims of sex crimes, she was granted anonymity to give her account of the experience at a Durham residence shared by members of the lacrosse team. Among the details: she was an N.C. Central student and mother of two children; she worked for an escort service; she had been hired to perform for five men at a bachelor's party, only to find more than 40 at the party; they barked racial epithets at the black woman and another dancer; and finally, she was pulled into a bathroom where, she said, she was raped, sodomized and beaten by three men.

Davis "Buzz" Merritt, a visiting professor of journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill, said he agreed with not identifying the victim of a sexual assault, but he had problems with the detailed account that the paper allowed her to give under the cloak of anonymity. "Such unverified detail (in fact, testimony), absent any arrests, is risky business legally and skirts along the edge of fairness, in my view," said Merritt, a former editor of the Wichita Eagle who has taught media ethics at Kansas University and Wichita State University.

"At this point, no one has determined that a sexual crime occurred. The victim of whatever happened says one did occur -- and it probably did. But when police do not have enough evidence to make an arrest, the detailed testimony from the victim amounts to a free shot at 46 people who have no way of contesting anything."

Police have taken DNA samples from 46 of the team's 47 members. The team's only black member was not tested because the woman said her three assailants were white.

Other readers had problems with a front-page story Wednesday that identified 15 lacrosse players who have run afoul of the law in their time at Duke, mostly on misdemeanor alcohol and public urination charges. The problem with that story, critics said, is that it was the first to publicly name any lacrosse players and, having identified them, implicitly connected them with the sexual assault.

"Listing the arrest records of 15 athletes in this morning's paper, although qualified, gives rise to an implication that the ones who have been charged with underage drinking and public urination are in a group of suspects smaller than the 40-plus unidentified team members," wrote Katherine White, an attorney and former Charlotte Observer reporter who lives in Raleigh.

"If the allegations printed in the paper are ultimately found to be true, the woman is a victim of a horrific crime.... It appears, however, that The N&O has convicted the team, without the benefit of any criminal charges pending against team members."

Others were concerned that, by reporting the testing of 46 members of the lacrosse team, the paper painted all with the brush of a crime committed, allegedly, by three players.

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