Murder
I need your help. For a programme committed to holding officials to account, testing argument and rigorous debate we sometimes have a problem with a more traditional form of news.... Crime. How much of it should we have in our programme?
When deciding whether to do a crime story it is easier if there is an issue attached: there's a terrorism angle, it says something about UK drug culture, there is a clear racial motive, the criminal justice system failed etc etc. But when its just a compelling, awful, human story it's much harder to judge.
Heart wrenching interviews with relatives can be deeply moving and powerful radio but what makes them news? We devote significant resources to crime stories so I would appreciate your thoughts.
Comments
Good of you to ask. My view is that there are already way too many crime stories on the news. Crime can certainly be important news, but my opinion is you have to ask yourself this about each story: what are the implications for someone not directly involved in the specific crime?
So I would agree that a story about a terrorist plot to blow up half of London is newsworthy. On other hand, it seems to be something that must be drummed into you all at journalist school that any crime involving children is automatically news. It really isn't. Some of the stories you run on child murders are undoubtedly horrific tragedies for those involved, but really have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of us.
Please try to concentrate on real news. Crime is news if it has wider implications beyond the specific crime, and not otherwise.
I clicked on "I would appreciate your thoughts" and ended up in Eddie-land. So thoughts here instead.
CRIME AND ITS 鈥淢ANAGEMENT鈥
Our culture regards criminality as a career choice and justice as a tidying-up exercise. Joe public, schizophrenic as ever, observes crime and punishment the same way he does a motorway crash; it is just a spectacle until he or his is involved.
Personally, I would like to see more philosophy, sociology, psychology etc applied to the story behind the 鈥渃rime鈥. Also: I would want to highlight the role of government in shaping 鈥渃ulture鈥 and their involvement in all crime as an accessory.
Finally: I was struck by the judge in the Borat case saying: 鈥淚 do not begin to understand you motivation鈥 (or similar). Well 鈥 I bloody do, and I can鈥檛 help wondering about the competence of a judge who doesn鈥檛!?
Much more I could say . . .
Now if you were talking about the murder of journalism, you'd have a point. But who holds 大象传媒 to account for it and what are the consequences? A statement in the Mail of what everyone already knows to be true? As for heart wrenching interviews with the families and friends of crime victims or even the victims themselves at the time of their own intense personal grief, what purpose does it serve except to titillate your audience and increase ratings just the way sensational journalists in commercial media do? What does anyone learn beyond the facts given by the authorities? What value does the story gain and what is the tradeoff in infringing the right to privacy of those who need it most? 大象传媒, have you no shame or are you completely unaware of how you come across to your audience?
Crime stories seem to have two three faces. The first is that, it will be unfair not to report them, for reporting crime cases permits the public to know the reality. However, the other face of crime stories are that, too often, there is a selective report which sadly are exploited by politicians for electoral gains. Cruel as it may appear, it would be nice for reporters not to limit their interviews to victims but also allow criminals, that have been caught to express themselves.
This method, may permit us to understand why some criminals commit their crimes. It will also deny speculators for occasionally manipulating the causes and sources of crime in our society.
Above all, it will drive up the audience of Radio and Television stations and also bring them more adverts.
Elie Smith.
www.eliesmith.blogspot.com
Yep, you got it - for the 大象传媒 on a national radio station to report it, it has to have sort of wider implications on society.
Otherwise the reporting ends up having unintended consequences.
I get very fed up with parents not allowing their kids out, whether in the evening or making their own journey to school becasue of stranger danger or fear of other crimes.
These kind of crimes haven't increased at all but our awareness of them has. And that is not the fault but a consequence of media reporting.
A great example is knife crime - it's actually gone down in recent years but you wouldn't know it from the media reporting on it.
Is it relevant to report a crime in a local newspapaper about a child, probably, yes but on PM or the Today...no, I don't think so.
I agree with Adam. The news should be more about story that effect the vast majority of people.
The country seems to thrive on tradegy these days so the press seems to follow. Please report the news we need to hear, not what we want to hear.
It's a difficult line to tread. Yes, crime should be reported, especially when someone has been convicted for a heinous offence. But then again it shouldn't be gotten out of proportion. The majority of the population will be untouched by the sort of crime that makes the headlines and we don't need scaring into thinking we're about to be a victim the next time we go out (or turn off our lights and go to bed).
It would be good to have some kind of balance and encouragement for decent folk to reclaim their country and let their children walk to school again.
As another commentator says, if they can be tied into a bigger issue and are used as an indicator of a modern trend, then sure, let's hear them. But 'gratuitous' crime stories, the kind that are plucked from nowhere to take up a 30-second slot between larger items, are just pointless. Anyone that they are relevant to will already know about them, and anyone they are not relevant to won't care.
Peter, I don't think that PM is necessarily the best platform to air the emotional side of crime.
It's a one hour programme and I'm sure there is always plenty to cram in.
However, listening to the victims recounting stories of lost loved ones ......
...hearing the emotion in the voices is a far more effective way of recounting a 'news' story and indeed getting the message across. It humanises these now too regular tragedies, especially as we become more de-sensitised to listening to an all too familiar crime reporters script.
In a land where fear of crime and perception of its threat are so disconnected from actual events there should be a public interest test placed on crime coverage by serious news broadcasts.
If a crime story doesn't genuinely contribute to a wider public discourse, how can it be justified as anything other than voyeurism?
luc
I agree with Luc.
Unjust, blatant, and consecutive killings should be reported. Sporadic deaths should be limited to the metro or local section of the news. 大象传媒 should focus on the deaths of the palestinians, iraqis, etc. who who are killed everyday.
Like one observer posted, more psychology and sociology should be included in the news report to get a clearer picture of how the crimes evoloved and are likely to evolove in the future.
In short, ofcourse you should keep reporting deadly crimes. When you start questioning this is when you start becoming an animal...no better than the deadly criminal.
In my honest opinion there is general over reporting of crime via the media. Local crime stories have a place on local radio stations or in the local media (yes they do have audiences). It would be far better to have some good news stories to provide some level of balance in what is a daily portion of news. As far as the PM programme goes report crime that has a nationwide significance that will result in new case law or justice being seen to be done. Leave the reporting of general criminal cases to the news bulletins. Remember there are victims of crime and reporting does nothing but victimise them again. Stories such as Peerages for money are very important and must receive appropriate air time as they have national significance.
Are you talking about PM - which is a news magazine or "The News" which isn't? PM surely looks at the stories behind the news - so if crime is the main news by all means stick with it. Otherwise, I agree that sob stories in themselves are not what we switch on to a fairly "intelligent" news programme for (I use your advertising for Radio 4 here). As far as the 6 o'clock news is concerned - I find myself switching off more and more often in frustration that it's not so much news events as political opinions which dominate it. I'm really less and less interested in what our politicians feel - or want us to think they feel - about real events. Just give me the news, please.
Not much to add here, except to endorse what many people are saying:
- keep reporting crime in terms of social trends or indicators only
- report nationally or internationally significant crime
- report the most serious crimes against children
Only new thought might be:
- can you find an innovative way to interpret the story around a crime?
- eg restorative justice that actually works?
- eg rehabilitation that works?
- eg revisiting the 'doom & gloom' statistics in a more helpful way, rather than chasing the sensational aspect of the story and raising fear levels?
Fifi
Peter, compelling human stories are very upsetting and the interviews with neighbours, family etc when for example some child has been horribly killed are at best pointless. They tend to be on the lines of "So how do you feel?" "Well we are all terribly shocked and upset etc etc". How would we expect them to feel? So I think best leave it alone and stick to politics and terrorists and anything else the lovely Eddie finds topical and interesting.
Regards Jo
Crime will always fill the news gap for many because it can be so sensational.
We do not want to open up the problems to which we should be applying our minds.It is too painful to think about the abused, the neglected and the mentally ill who fill our prisons. It would cost more than we want to pay to help them. Better let them rot in their cells.
I agree with Adam - if the crime has implications for the rest of the people then by all means report it. The case of Kriss Donald is of national importance in that it highlights the problems of racial hatred. It also demonstrates that it is not only white people who instigate racial attacks (although the 大象传媒 6 O'Clock news last night (8/11) tried to put a different spin on it). I think it has also shown up the failure of the criminal justice system in consideration of the fact that one of the murderers had been released early for violent offences
Unfortunately violence and murder has become only too common. One wonders if this is caused by its reporting, and/or by violence being depicted on t.v., in films and video games. Perhaps the 大象传媒 can put their spin on this and mislead the public into thinking something other than what the numbers say.
Like stuff, crime happens. But global policy failure somehow means more to me than what the residents of some backward Brit hellhole do after dark. 600,000 dead in Iraq kind of puts it into context. At least you got to choose a failed society rather than having one that worked dismantled at gunpoint.
If the crime is something that has a wider bearing on society - terrorism, crime statistics released, possible failings of the justice system, then I think it's justified.
Like plenty of other commenters seem to be suggesting though, lots of crime stories are unneccessary. Stories such as "Brit dies on holiday", "child killed" don't need to be known about by the majority of the populace. Particularly as the story is always "so and so died by so and so, families are upset". It always seems to be so very morbid.
I have to wonder at the people who enjoy these stories as the news, they're probably the same people who slow down at car accidents.
As people were increasingly able to see and hear more and more of the different sections of the media they began to realise that quite different views were being expressed about the same things and that , frequently, different facts were presented.
This was a slow process until the Tories decide to undermine the PM by attaching the description 鈥渟pin鈥 to everything he said or was said on his behalf. This had a much wider and unintended effect.
The word 鈥渟pin鈥 rapidly caught on and is now in most peoples' minds when considering anything presented as news.
You and all the media now have to live with this. There has to be a good reason to pick any one of the many crimes. There can be as many reasons as there are crimes. Furthermore an article must not appear to sensationalize or to be designed to fill column space.
Above all, the article must mean what it says and only what it says i.e. it must not 鈥渟pin鈥.
I think the answer to this one is that a newsman knows what is news. He knows whether it is genuine. He is not there as a teacher or to advance the interests of any particular section of the community.
I wholeheartedly agree with Dean. Unless a specific crime requires national interest there is no need for it to be on national news.Regional news is for regional issues. I feel that most crime is reported on for political gain or to prove a point. My 90 year old Grandfather is only too quick to remind me that society has not changed. There was still sex before marriage, under age sex, rape,robbery, thieving, child abuse and murder in the 1930's, it is not new, it was in the same quantities pro rata. The technology was not there to bring it into everyones living room and it was not polite to discuss it.The fear of crime is being used as a tool to shape our lives not merely as informative or newsworthy.
Which would be most people, Dean.
Seriously, for national news programming...Unless it's terrorism, something truly novel (Guy got murdered is not novel; Guy got murdered by mob in animal suits is novel (and slightly absurd)), or involving someone notable for -other- reasons...Let it go.