Abstract
This paper will address media representations and perceptions of crimes and criminology. Crime and deviance, from exposés to crime statistics, are often portrayed and discussed in the media, sometimes incorrectly. This paper will compare reports on a recent news item from two reputable news sources and evaluate the discrepancies and similarities in how the same story, yet from different outlets, is reported. How stories are reported from the crime to the perpetrator itself inevitably influences the impact that crime has on a community and its perception of that particular crime and crime in general. Another factor that contributes to heightened fear of crime is the criminalization of racial and ethnic minorities in the news, a recorded implicit bias in reporting. This in itself can have an impact on the perception of crime and an unfair judgment on the type of people that are “more likely” to commit a crime thanks to historical racism.
Keywords: criminality, crime, implicit bias, race, racial bias
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The news media involves an array of newspapers, magazines, periodicals and more, all of which carry their own implicit bias when it comes to reporting, as well as political ideology. No one source is completely neutral, so in comparing reports of crime and deviance issues, a comparison in reporting styles, bias and intention can almost always be found. The media, be it news, radio or newspapers, has been the source of information and entertainment in American society and has been credited as the most influential force in terms of individual and collective thoughts, opinions, beliefs and behaviors. Media plays an especially important role in the construction of public opinion regarding crime and criminal justice.
Since the digital revolution has encompassed the way that mass media and communications work, the news media is a perpetuating force in the lives of citizens. The goal of news media is to present an interesting enough story to its readers to increase and retain viewership. Martina Feilzer of Bangor University (2007) argued that news media is passive in realizing the societal impact of media representations of crime and criminal justice, neglecting how rampant reporting on crime can desensitize a community to seeing such, as well as contradiction itself when it eschews attempts of others to influence the media. Realistically (and fortunately), most people’s beliefs about crime were not formed from personal experience, but instead media depictions and illustrations of crime and criminals. There is not enough space nor airtime to cover all types of crime, thus, violent crimes are reported to gain attention of the public, from the truly bizarre to the inhumane. This accomplishes the media’s goal of attracting viewers and remaining a staple in the lives of citizens. Sensational news like crimes grip the imaginations of readers, viewers and Internet browsers alike, and with crime being a central theme to entertainment elsewhere, the boundaries between information and entertainment have been inextricably blurred. The fascination with the “underside,” as Ken Dowler et al. (2006) describe, that society has is linked to the need to categorize socially. Psychologically speaking, there is a distinct group of people described as the “others,” who are unfavorable or unsightly for some reason or another. In this case, it is criminality and deviance that deems them the “other.” This, and the selective nature of crime news, play on the fears of news readers and viewers, creating a distorted picture of how crime and criminality are represented in the media and how often it is perpetuated in reality.
To contrast, the New York Daily News and the New York Post reported on the murder of Rosetta Ewell, who was shot to death outside of her child’s daycare center by the child’s father and her ex-boyfriend, Eugene Miller. As Rebecca Rosenberg (2016) reported in the New York Post, Eugene Miller had only been indicted in Ewell’s shooting death. Ensuring to note him as an alleged killer to not presume guilt, Rosenberg writes that Miller had 17 domestic-incident reports on record in The Bronx involving five different women; it is unclear if one of the women was Ewell. It is inferred by the article and the Manhattan DA who commented that Miller shot his ex-girlfriend for breaking up with him, having waited after she dropped off their two-year-old daughter at daycare. The article also denotes him as an ex-con without making any other reference to a crime he had perpetrated in the past. In July 2017, the New York Daily News reported on Miller’s trial and sentencing for the crime—25 years to life, as decided by Justice Gregory Carro of the Manhattan Supreme Court. The article’s title denotes him a “spurned lover” who was jealous, vindictive and possessive of Ewell, having stalked her for some time prior to the shooting.
In another case, the Associated Press via the Chicago Tribune reported on Randal Gebo, a man accused of the murder of Vermont citizen Cindy Cook and the theft of her car. Gebo was identified as a ‘person of interest’ in the article’s title before it goes on to report that he was arrested by Vermont State Police and was in custody. He had been charged with the theft of Cook’s car, but only named a ‘person of interest’ in the investigation in her death; he was later arrested for her murder. The article explains that he was wanted on charges of theft and credit card fraud, as his movements were tracked and saw his use of Cook’s debit card throughout the country. Unlike the previous articles, there is no mention of any prior criminal activity before the theft or alleged murder of Ms. Cook.
The primary discrepancy in the crimes of Gebo and Miller are that the former is a Caucasian male and the latter an African American male, which can create an implicit racial bias, which is often found in criminal news reporting. While both men were accused of murder and other crimes, the reports on Eugene Miller noted his past criminal behavior, although it was likely an indicator of following violence like the shooting death of Ewell, but the same was not done for Gebo. Historical racism toward African Americans consists of stereotyped characteristics, such as a predisposition toward violence and crime which have contributed to the heightened fear among Caucasians of victimization by them and other racial minorities. Media exposure contributes to such a fear by disproportionately showing racial minorities as criminal suspects rather than their Caucasian counterparts. Murder and similar crimes certainly have an impact on the community, but when one group or several groups are perpetrated as inherently violent or with a propensity for crime more than another, it only contributes to the stereotype.
- Associated Press. (2017, July 20). ‘Person of interest’ in Vermont killing is arrested in Downers Grove. Retrieved September 08, 2017, from http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-vermont-murder-suspect-arrested-downers-grove-20170720-story.html
- Dowler, K., Fleming, T., & Muzzatti, S. L. (2006). Constructing Crime: Media, Crime, and Popular Culture. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 48, 6.
- Feilzer, M. Y. (2007). Criminologists making news? Providing factual information on crime and criminal justice through a weekly newspaper column. Crime, Media, Culture, 3(3), 285-304.
- Rosenberg, R. (2016, January 20). Man charged for gunning down ex outside their kid’s daycare. Retrieved September 08, 2017, from http://nypost.com/2016/01/20/man-charged-for-gunning-down-ex-outside-their-kids-daycare/
