Crime AND NEWS Media - Tara Ross PDF

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Crime AND NEWS Media - Tara Ross...

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CRIME AND NEWS MEDIA: - Source: Police reporters feed the hourly bulletins. They have to maintain good relationships with the Police to get information, but they also have to maintain enough distance to not be swayed by bias. The source relationship can be complex. - Recording: To take photos and record in Court journalists have specific rights, which the public doesn’t, as long as they apply for these rights prior to the Court case. This is because journalists are the ‘eyes and ears’ of the people - Guidelines: There are a number of strict guidelines around what you can and can’t report on – eg. defamation, contempt: sub judice – the key aim is to prevent publishing material that may prejudice a fair trial, eg. interviewing an eyewitness before a trial. - Urawera 7 Surveillance: When the media reported on the heavy-handedness of the Police – the illegal surveillance. Dominion Post got access to the terror raid files and ran the story on Urawera. The Crown Solicitor immediately took these articles to the High Court. Fairfax won the case, but had to spend a huge amount of money to defend their decision. - Suppression: Automatic suppression includes suppression of names for those under 17, the SIS, and complainants in sexual assault cases. Lack of name suppression has huge implications and consequences. Debates over name suppression are common. Judge-ordered suppression may include name, address, occupation, until next appearance. - Defamation: Making statements about someone that bring that person into disrepute. Branch of the law media fear most. Awards can range from $5000$50,000 where ordinary people are defamed and $50,000-$500,000 for stories involving celebrities, or even in the millions where a company has been defamed and its business damaged. Court costs can be even higher. One of the reasons white-collar crime is so underreported is due to defamation risks and difficulty finding whistle-blowers. - News Values: Depend on the level of human interest as to what is important, eg. - Proximity - Threshold - Violence or conflict - Predictability - Visual spectacle or graphic - Simplification imagery - Individualism - Children - Risk - Conservative ideology and - Sex political diversion - Celebrity or high status CRIME NEWS: - Crime is over-represented - Crimes, offenders and victims are treated unequally - Reporting trends tend to focus on individual motivations rather than broader social, political and economic issues - Reporting tens to stigmatise criminals - Media tend to sentimentalize some victims of crime, especially elderly women and young children – we paint them as more vulnerable....