Is Crime News?

Описание: Panel 1 of "Media Mythmaking of Punishment and Safety: Changing the Narrative on Race, Crime, and Reform," a one-day convening which explored media coverage of crime and of criminal legal reform which took place at Harvard University on November 15, 2024.

Moderator: Adrian Walker (Boston Globe)

Speakers: Nazita Lajevardi (Michigan State University), Cheryl Thompson-Morton (Newmark Graduate School of Journalism CUNY ), Heather Silber Mohamed (Clark University)

For decades, research has shown that mainstream media outlets cover crime in a racialized manner that is out of step with true patterns of criminal or violent behavior, socially constructing racialized notions of threat and fear that harm communities and create mistrust of journalism. This panel explored whether and when crime is truly newsworthy and whether the public is served by the reporting treatment crime typically gets in newsrooms. The discussion was enhanced by speakers offering the history of crime news as “infotainment” and the 24-hour news cycle shaping crime news in a particular way, the “stickiness” of racialized threat narratives about people of color and immigrants and Muslims, and conflicting takes on whether racialized reporting patterns have improved or largely remained the same over time. The panel concluded by asking where we go from here, particularly given the challenges in combatting misinformation once it has seeped into the ether or been intentionally deployed against marginalized communities.

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