Crime In The News

Crime in the news

Synopsis

Organized crime in Melbourne has openly been in the public and media area since the 1970’s. More recently, Melbourne has again been the focus of a six-year spate of alleged organized crime-related murders and brutal, audacious killings. Beginning with the 1998 murder of Alphonse Gangitano a suspected “organized crime boss”, a string of more than 24 unsolved killings ravaged Melbourne. The death of 36-year-old, convicted drug dealer and suspected murderer Jason Moran on June 21, 2003, who was shot in a van at a children’s football clinic in Essendon North with five children in the back of the car, took the killings to a new low.

How the media responds to and reports on crime is where my interest lies.

Introduction

The study of media representations of crime and deviance is already a well researched subject represented by many different academic disciplines such as media, criminological and sociological studies. Coupled with this is the diverse range of areas within the body of knowledge on the topic ranging from effects research which looks at the consequences of representing crime in the media, to the more journalistic focused studies of the construction of crime stories and why the appear as they do.

A number of factors can make an event or situation worthy of media attention and reporting. Crime and deviance are often reported in the media as they involve conflict, timeliness, proximity, currency and notoriety, which are well known factors that make an event newsworthy (Livingston et al, 2003: 13).

An abundance of material has already been produced about the subject of what makes crime news and how it is constructed. Most Australian journalists still believe in the notion of the media as the “Fourth Estate”, which has been explained as the “independent watchdog of power” (Schultz 1998: 44) Some journalists stipulate that they simply report on crime as part of bringing the public the news of the day (Schudson, 1989), however researchers such as Cohen and Young (1973), Chibnall (1981), Bignall (1997) and Bird and Dardenne (1997), claim that the media’s reporting of crime is more calculated and constructed. Therefore through my analysis I must ask the question do journalists manufacture the news, or how influential is the media in constructing crime news? In examining these questions, I will also consider how the media use language and stereotypes to report on events and how much this contributes to the tone of a story. The latter is where I will focus my thesis in examining how two Melbourne newspapers represented a spate of murders that all forms of media commonly referred to as a “gangland war”.

Crime in the News

What makes crime newsworthy? Livingstone, Reiner and Allen (2003: 26) believe that “bad news and sensationalism” have become core news values. Many other researchers agree and have suggested that more and more, prime media spots are being used to report on “violent, sexy and sensational crime,” mainly for entertainment value and to attract customers (Chermak, 1998: 87). Livingstone et al. suggest that there have been a number of profound changes in print media post World War Two especially in the way and types of crimes reported, the demographic of the offenders and victims, and the depiction of the police and justice system. Studies also show that crime reporting is commonly contradictory to official crime statistics; specifically, crime is increasingly being represented as more of a serious threat and is more calculated and severe that it’s statistical evidence (Livingston et al, 2003; Chibnall, 1977; Chermak, 1998).

The question of whether the media in fact create the news has been examined in academic literature. This line of investigation has attempted to establish the reality of objectivity in news reporting, and whether journalists do in fact simply report, “random reactions to random events” (Schudson: 1989). While most journalists may argue that objectivity exists, many researchers believe otherwise suggesting that news items are not merely selected, but “constructed” by journalists and media organisations. Media players provide the public with “stylised information” that conforms to the standards and principles of that particular media organisation. Surette suggests that this is not necessarily a malicious attempt to be subjective, but simply a product of the system of news making. He states: (Schudson: 1989; Surette, 1992).

The bulk of news is less discovered than formed by journalists. But journalists don’t make up the facts, they select facts “created” for them by individuals or bureaucracies. They offer a reality constructed in part by the selection of some sources and not others (Surette, 1992).

While this construction of events by sources is not necessarily deviously planned, news sources deliver their own versions of a situation that when presented as news, are often perceived as transparently representing a broader reality. So as a result, news sources’ present their own particular slant on the world through their interpretation of events and issues. A view which they hope will become the dominate one (Schudson: 1989; Surette, 1992).

Crime stories in the news are one of the most influential sources of information the public uses to develop opinions about the criminal justice system (Chermak, 1998: 87). A number of researchers have focused on the limitations of the media’s methods and main sources of information about crime. This includes journalists’ reliance on different sources in the criminal justice system, eg. police, courts, and corrections, and how the use of these sources affects or shapes the presentation of the parts of the system (Chermak, 1998 & 1994; Kid-Hewitt, 1995; Surette 1992). Police give media a considerable amount of information and access because they have a significant stake in what is presented. Through the media, the police can manipulate how crime stories are presented, asserting some influence on public perceptions of crime. Reporters also have fairly easy access to the courts and tend to develop working relationship with court sources in order to obtain information. Correctional organisations, however, are harder to gain access to and subsequently this part of the criminal justice system is