NCJ Number
159966
Date Published
1995
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This essay offers suggestions for how the news media should cover crime.
Abstract
First, the press should be more explicit and more sensational, so media consumers are not left with any doubt about what happened. People should know the horrors of criminal behavior and what people do to one another. Second, reporters and editors should think about how an unusual or sensational story might reflect some larger social problem; for example, an inquiring reporter might note, apart from the infrequency of daycare abuse, that those cases reveal something important about a poorly monitored and poorly supported system of daycare for children. Third, reporting on an unusual incident should provide the most reasonable and reliable evidence of how unusual it is. Have at least some knowledge about the most recent statistics on how relatively frequent or infrequent the incident is. A fourth and related point is to take care in reporting crime statistics. The source and nature of the crime statistics reported should be included as part of the report. Fifth, the coverage of a sensational incident should follow that case to its conclusion in the criminal justice system. Sixth, consider stories about issues that once received media attention but are no longer being covered. Examine why media coverage has diminished. Seventh, complement coverage of sensational incidents with stories that analyze a newspaper's and a television station's performance.