Chapter 11: Media Ethics and

Criminal Justice
 Influence of the Media
• Influence of the media cannot be doubted.
• Numerous studies have shown most people gain
knowledge of events from media.
• News by the media is a critical element in forming and
modeling public opinion on most topics, including criminal
justice.
• Silverstone (2007)
– Suggests worldwide media, in age of globalization,
constitute “site for the construction of a moral order”
(p. 7).

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 Media Constructions of Crime
• Media decides what is “newsworthy,” and crime ranks
high on that scale
• Jewkes (2011)
– Explains that media version of reality is determined by
two factors
a) Mediated portrayal of reality fashioned by news
production processes
b) Agenda-setting, that is, the assumptions of
media professionals about their audience that
cause them to select some items as newsworthy
and others not are what determine how a story is
framed
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 Media Constructions of Crime

• Media construction of crime will define what are thought

to be causes of crime
• Surette (2011)
– Notes that in modern society, mediated crime event
displaces actual event and the vicarious pleasure of
reading about crime from place of safety and security
is far preferable to being victimized
a) MADD example

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 Media Constructions of Crime
• Programs like CSI influence juror expectations about
evidence.
• Juror expectations of evidence that will be presented at
trial shaped by multiple exposures to programming, to an
extent that forensic evidence becomes reified and
cannot be questioned.
• Legal system depicted as an obstacle to crime fighting
with complex procedures and trials and dramatic
adversarial contests
• In reality, there is little drama, few accused actually go to
trial, and unexciting plea bargains are the norm (Surette,
2011)
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 Crime, Media, and Ethics
• Movement toward ethics in journalism began as early as
the 1860s.
– Seven “Canons of Journalism” were adopted by 1923
by the American Society of Newspaper Editors
• Klaidman and Beauchamp (1987)
– Took view that journalists ought to make necessary
ethical decisions themselves instead of adopting an
approach that the journalist or broadcaster has
absolute freedom to publish anything unless courts rule
otherwise
– Discussed issue of freedom of the press
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 Crime, Media, and Ethics
– Virtuous traits critical in a profession where stories are
often produced in haste and under the pressure of
events
– Propose cultivating moral virtues ought to be ongoing
process within media so fundamental virtues are
embedded and operationalized in stress situations
– “The virtuous journalist” has the following virtues:
a) Truth, avoiding bias, avoiding harm, serving the
public, maintaining trust, escaping manipulation,
inviting criticism, and being accountable

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 Crime, Media, and Ethics
• Competence is key issue for media
– Absence or weakness is revealed when the journalist
is unable to separate personal beliefs
a) Can result in plagiarism in certain circumstances
– Can be general
a) Can cover multitude of different tasks
– Can be specific
a) Relates to specific context and defined task
– Is linked to responsibility

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 Reporting the Truth
• Reporting truth to public is fundamental to the role of
media in society as well as moral responsibility of media.
• Concept of truth in journalism is not unproblematic.
• Klaidman and Beauchamp (1987)
– In covering stories where public’s right to know is a
determining factor, stories should
a) Be substantially complete
b) Encourage an objective understanding
c) Be balanced and accurate

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 Reporting the Truth
• Cost is also a factor.
• Herman and Chomsky (as cited in Greer, 2010)
– Taking information from apparently credible sources
minimizes investigative expense.
– Reporters must be both balanced and accurate.

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 Reporting the Truth
• Image of a black male as a criminal is now so deeply
embedded that alleged victims utilize persona to enhance
fabricated accounts of crimes.
• There is a common perception that most crimes are
committed by blacks, and it is true that blacks are
disproportionately involved in crime.
• War on Drugs did much to strengthen this association.

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 Constructions of Rape
Garland and others (2016) analyzed representations of rape in
30 comic books to determine which rape myths were
reproduced
• Almost 1/3 of rape scenes reinforced the rape myth that
rape is preventable by fighting back.
• Almost 1/3 of rape scenes supported the myth that failing
to fight results in the raped person being responsible and
blamed for the victimization.
• Myth that the victim’s conduct brought about the rape
was also endorsed.
• Comics supported the myth that rape is an outcome of a
sexual desire.
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 Reporting the Truth
• Masculine assumptions commonly deployed by media to
characterize women’s experience of crime
– Either valorize or demonize them
• Madonna/Whore duality
– Enables such labeling of women
– Media perpetuates images dictated
• Women who kill commonly are framed by media as
being extra deviant.
– Commonly portrayed as insane, emotionally unstable,
domestic violence victims, sexual deviants, or bad
mothers or wives
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 Law of Opposites
• Surette (2011)
– Nature of crime, criminals, and victims portrayed in
media are generally the complete opposite of pattern
shown through official crime statistics or victim
surveys.

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 News-making Criminology
• Barak (1994)
– Aims to
a) Demystify images of crime and punishment
b) Affect public attitudes about crime and bring about a
public policy based on structural and historical
analyses of institutional development
c) Allow criminologists to deploy their knowledge and
be credible voices in public policy making on crime
d) Call on criminologists to develop the necessary
media skills to participate in dialogues on crime and
justice
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 Reporting the Truth
• Elias (1994, 1996)
– Argued that media misrepresents the situation of
crime victims by distorting causes and impact of
victimization and by presenting victims as passive and
vulnerable
• Media has been accused of perpetuating the image of an
“ideal victim” by focusing attention only on victims who
meet standard of victimhood (De Mesmaecker, 2010).

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 Reporting the Truth
• Media accounts that engender moral panics amplify
deviance and function as advocacy for greater levels of
social control.
• Media tend to deal in what Jewkes (2011) calls “binary
oppositions.”
– To present events as choices between good and evil,
guilt and innocence, and deviant, dangerous or sick
as opposed to normal

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 Reporting the Truth
• Fear of crime and fear of being victimized by crime are
key influences in criminal justice policy making and in the
promotion of punitive policies.
• Many studies have found associations between media
consumption patterns and measures of fear of crime.
• Surveys reveal majority of persons confirm they receive
knowledge of risk of crime from media.

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 Avoiding Bias
• Bias is represented not simply by distortion of facts or
information but also by a departure from objectivity
informed by values of writer or editor.
– Should be distinguished from error
• Partisanship will only equate to bias in cases where
underlying partisan values distort story.

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 Avoiding Bias
• News is constructed by the media who decide what is
“newsworthy.”
– Often enhanced by sensationalist reporting
• Media representations of police using lethal force
undoubtedly influence public perceptions of police
• Media often employ euphemisms designed to minimize
or play down harm caused by police.

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 Avoiding Bias
• Hirschfield and Simon (2010)
– Contend that media stereotypically construct police as
three types:
a) Professional
b) Vigilante
c) Oppressor
• Victims of police violence are treated less
sympathetically by media than other murder victims.

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 Media and Police
• Media representations of police using lethal force undoubtedly
influence public perceptions of the police
• One study of local newspaper accounts of such shootings that
occurred before and after the formation of Black Lives Matter found,
however, that news media continued to deploy narratives that
ignored the “racial dynamics” of such encounters
– Continued to accept police accounts as definitive of what
occurred
– Regularly reported on victims’ criminal histories and past
conduct that they considered relevant to the victims’ death
• The output of police body cameras and the pervasive video filming
of incidents involving police and citizens by bystanders have
provided the news media with new sources of information about
police practices.

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 Avoiding Harm
• John Stuart Mill
– Created the do-no-harm principle
– “A person’s liberty may justifiably be restricted to
prevent harm that that person’s actions would cause
to others”
• Concerns of journalist should include concern for public
interest even when serving that interest results in harm to
a public official
• Archard (1998)
– Notes that a clear distinction must be drawn between
story being in public interest and story that interests
public
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 Serving the Public

• Historical account of press freedom in U.S. reveals that

in return for special privileges granted to it, the media is
expected to provide a public benefit in form of timely,
relevant, accurate information that informs the public
understanding.
• Serving the public with news has shifted in meaning over
time.

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 Serving the Public

• Surette (2011)
– Defines infotainment as “marketing of edited, highly
formatted information about the world in
entertainment media vehicles”
• Beginning from the late 1980s, crime-related
infotainment began to appear on television and the
boundary between crime and entertainment dissolved.
– CSI effect

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 Maintaining Trust
• Most urgent moral concern is securing and keeping the
trust of the public.
• Truthfulness is fundamental to trust and is associated
with fidelity and loyalty.
• Surveys of media credibility report:
– Almost every news organization/program had seen its
credibility marks decline.
– Major broadcast news outlets’ credibility rating ranged
between only 22% and 24%.
– Wall Street Journal rated higher (22%) than New York
Times (18%) or USA Today (16%)

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 Manipulation

• Media power is formidable in political, economic, and

social fields.
• When media attempt, in hard news, to persuade using
emotional rhetoric rather than fact, it constitutes
manipulation
• Manipulation is
– Any intentional and successful influence of people by
non-coercively altering actual choices available to
them or by non-persuasively altering other’s
perceptions of those choices.

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 Chapter Summary

• Articulation between media, crime, and ethics is complex

and multifaceted.
• Nexus between crime and newsworthiness is well
established.
• Media fuels moral panics and public fear of crime and
distorts policy making.
• In terms of ethical responsibilities for reporting truth,
media record is clearly imperfect.

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