BLOOMINGTON, Ill., Dec. 4 -- The 24-year-old American student, Amanda Knox, was the recent victim of the media’s obsession with sexualized women. The Italian, British, and American media called her “Foxy Knoxy” and claimed she went on a killing spree to satisfy her sexual urges. But all this doesn’t add up. If we look at the Society of Professional Journalism Code of Ethics, we can see that their main goals are broken down into four parts; seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently and be accountable. Now through this analysis, there is examples and evidence that many media outlets don’t quite follow these codes of ethics.

To play catch-up, Knox was an American foreign exchange student in Italy when she was accused of murdering her British housemate Meredith Kercher in 2007 in Perugia, Italy where they were both studying abroad. She was convicted of the crime in 2009 along with her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, but with an appeal, overturned the ruling in 2011 to return to the states.

The problem arises as soon as the murder allegations surfaced. The media’s allegations were tales of a satanic ritualistic sex orgy between Knox, Sollecito and the mysterious man that led to murder. Photos of Knox and Sollecito kissing outside of her and Kercher’s place were taken the morning of the body discovery, as an ode to the sexualized storyline, but comfort or fear wasn’t mentioned? Reporters jumped at the idea that soon after Kercher’s death, Knox and Sollecito visited a lingerie shop, but her parents told 20/20 that she couldn’t return to the crime scene that was her apartment, so the first thing she needed was underwear.

One example of not just the media as a whole, but a journalist is Barbie Nadeau, a contributor to The Daily Beast. She may have tarnished Knox’s reputation all on her own by fueling the sexual obsession with her headlines, “Foxy Knoxy plays the field from her jail cell with new romance” or “Diary reveals Foxy Knoxy’s sex secrets.” All of which either fabricated or sensationalized information.

Perhaps if Knox was a little less pretty, a little less sexual or even a little less American, she would have never spent a day in prison. But she’s boring and bookish. She isn’t as sexy as the media reports as the “Foxy Knoxy,” is she? This is a nickname taken from her Facebook and Myspace page referencing her soccer career, yet the media chose to spin this as well.

The papers are capitalizing off these stories — putting these ideas together in order to pump up their profit, instead of delivering you actual news to use. Former BBC correspondent and international affairs expert Phil Rees mentioned that the importance of the news often depends or who or how many people are affected by this story, and if it is broken down, it doesn’t affect too many people outside the suspects and families of them and Kercher. So the journalists, whoops, and forgot that minimizing harm is part of an ethical journalism code.

While the Washington papers, especially Seattle, focused on how Knox’s family was dealing or how they could try to get their daughter back, the rest of the world was not. They were maximizing on this opportunity to snag readers into a realm focusing on sex, drugs, and sex. A Telegraph headline read “Amanda Knox has sex and smoked cannabis on night of Meredith Kercher murder.”

Lesa Hatley Major is an Indiana University Journalism Professor, who taught a course titled Sex in the News. Major said if the media know the story is “sexy,” it will attract attention and people will be interested. And although the media did not invent the name “Foxy Knoxy,” as it came from Knox’s soccer nickname displayed on her Facebook and Myspace page, they used it to exploit her situation.

An example of this is an article by Barbie Nadeau for The Daily Beast has a headline of “Foxy Knoxy in Court.” Nadeau also published the book “Angel Face: The True Story of Student Killer Amanda Knox” even though she remains that she is an objective reporter — how so? This seems to be a Kelley McBride reference to Bruce Feldman’s non-objective unethical ways as a journalist at ESPN writing a book about Mike Leach. BBC has a headline “Who is the real Foxy Knoxy?” and Britain’s The Telegraph has a headline “Who is Foxy Knoxy?”

Major said Knox isn’t the only female sexualized in the media, but there have been other cases such as Laurie Bembenek, who was given the nickname “Bambi” in 1982 after being found guilty of first-degree murder. Major said that the recent Casey Anthony case is another example as the prosecution tried to use her partying and wild ways as a motive for killing her daughter. But the jury didn't buy it.

Similarly in the Knox case, the prosecution claimed she was “an explosive mix of drugs, sex, and alcohol.” On the other hand, her lawyer was quoted firing back. “She was crucified, impaled in a public square,” Knox’s lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said to the court. “Who, if not her, has been run over by a media tsunami?”

The ethical question may be that if a reporter like Nadeau is receiving information from a primary source like a police office or a prosecutor, like in the case of Amanda Knox, should they take this at face value and print it immediately? Perhaps not the best ethical choice in the Knox case, as the sexual accusations and other information that surfaced were proven false.

So here, pulling out the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics as well as a pretty global standard is that accurate journalism is even more important when people’s fate depends on it. Both Major and Indiana University Sociology professor Christina Von Der Haar agree that the news media used sex to sell the story.

Rees said that whether sexual activity is related to the murder is surely a key to its relevance in the reporting. “For example, if the murder occurred in the midst of a violent sexual act, then the sexual behavior of the woman is important information,” Rees said. But he also said that if suspected female murderers have their sex lives examined when it bears no relation to the case, then that reporting is driven by non-journalistic motives and hence is unethical. And as in the case with Amanda Knox, it came to be known that her sex life had no relation to the case except with the prosecution’s allegations, which were quickly shot down, but still discussed wildly in the media.

While in prison, she was forced to compose a list of all the sexual partners she had been with after prison officials falsely told her she was HIV Positive. This list was eventually leaked to Italian media and published. Within the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics this seems to fail at minimizing harm for both Knox and those she listed. Perhaps the media should have read the ethical code stating, they should “Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.”

So why does it seem like unethical journalism is flourishing in these types of stories? Well Major would say it is because sex sells. And Dr. Von Der Haar said that it’s all about the money. “People are interested in the truth,” she said. “Unfortunately, truth does not always sells.” But Rees said these news organizations shouldn’t travel the pack since any untruths (in reporting) are always unethical.

Dr. Von Der Haar said this kind of reporting is a reflection of American culture. However, the most well respected journalists are supposed to follow these subjective code of ethics. “All professions have people who violate ethical standards,” she said. “You can't blame the entire industry for these people.”

Von Der Haar said few of her students believe everything they read or hear, as with the Amanda Knox trial. “They just know to be skeptical,” she said. “And, that kind of caution is directly linked to the decline of honesty in American culture.”

So is this dishonesty that we saw throughout the Amanda Knox case going to be the norm from now on? Mixing tabloid journalism and investigative reporting could be quite the oil and water. The media definitely has some thinking to do in terms of their failure to the public with unethical decision-making during their coverage and sexualizing of the Amanda Knox case.