This study examines the role of a local newspaper in shaping a community’s collective memory of child sexual abuse by documenting changing representations of a former rural orphanage and its custodians where such horrific crimes took place. The paper conducts an across-time analysis of news coverage (1944–1954 and 2010–2020) to map these changing representations in their media, policy and social contexts. It extends scholarship around collective memory and temporal reflexivity as a provocation for journalists to acknowledge and engage with their news outlet’s own mediated past (no matter how uncomfortable) when reporting on and interpreting events such as Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

本研究通过记录发生此类可怕犯罪的前农村孤儿院及其监护人的形象变化，探讨了当地报纸在塑造社区对儿童性虐待的集体记忆中的作用。本文对新闻报道（1944-1954 年和 2010-2020 年）进行了跨时间分析，以绘制这些不断变化的媒体、政策和社会背景中的表述。它围绕集体记忆和时间反身性扩展了学术研究，作为记者在报道和解释诸如澳大利亚儿童性虐待机构反应皇家委员会等事件时承认并参与其新闻媒体自己介导的过去（无论多么不舒服）的挑衅。