Panel 1: Is Crime News?

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)

Summary: 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. 

Highlights from the panel:
 

• “History is important. … The way that we think about modern crime coverage, specifically like broadcast … it starts in the late 60s in Philadelphia. And the goal was to create this new type of nightly news show or local news show that went from like a guy sitting at a desk talking, to people going to different scenes…it’s fast paced, it’s moving. And the goal of it was to be infotainment: so, part of it is to inform you, but part of it is to glue you to the screen because of all of these business incentives that we have. … Action News … this is a quote: “It was funny, bloody, and quick. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll watch them die.” … We’re going to as many scenes as possible, it’s not about talking about root causes, it’s not about keeping this community safe.” - Cheryl Thompson-Morton 
   
• “Combatting misinformation, particularly when it comes to minorities in this country, is very hard. These news stories have a durable effect. They actually shape public opinion, and they make [it] stick.” – Nazita Ladjevardi, describing research on experimental interventions to counteract misinformation after it had been disseminated, all of which failed
   
• “Public safety coverage, however, is about how do we help the community understand what is the fabric of safety in our community, how do we let them know about some solutions the community is coming up with, what are solutions happening in other communities. … It’s a much more holistic look at what impacts safety of individuals. Landlord-tenant issues, air quality issues, not just what law enforcement is looking at.” – Cheryl Thompson-Morton
   
• “I think descriptive representation can only go so far, right? I'd like to see the profit margins of these cable news companies be reduced. I'd like them to actually serve the public. I'd like to see more investment in public reporting. I think these profit structures have been very, very problematic and I think most people have pointed to descriptive representation as the way to try to combat this but again journalists of color can only do so much.” – Nazita Ladjevardi
   
• “[I]f we are really sort of tipping the scales and in who we're showing in these stories and if we're creating unbiased—or, sorry—inaccurate or unrepresentative images and if we're really highlighting stories of criminality and threat and illegality in a way that's not representative of the community, this is really perpetuating a push towards policies that is detrimental to those community members.” – Heather Silber Mohamed
   
• “[F]or some reason rising crime is a lot easier to cover than falling crime. Which is one reason the perception of crime is so much greater than the reality of it. You know it takes a lot more thoughtfulness to write about why homicides are going down than why they’ve gone up. And I think that's one of the things we need to get a lot better at.” – Adrian Walker