This isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot of good work that’s been done to cover the case, or even that daily coverage of the story is inherently exploitative. There have been powerful pieces written about the Duggar parents’ religious justifications for their negligence (which is not an isolated case), stories on how experts address sexual abuse perpetrated by minors and within families, critical takes on the curriculum the family used to teach their children destructive, patriarchal bullshit about sexual violence and a lot of necessary pushback against TLC for turning a profit on all of it. But let’s not shit ourselves: the media circus playing out around this family is not the same thing as responsible coverage, and it is not some noble pursuit to hold abusers accountable. 

Where do we draw the line between responsible coverage and a tabloid fixation on schadenfreude?