Media is the trusted source of information by the public which includes newspapers, journals, televisions, and radios among others. Whenever a crime occurs in the nation, the public is sure to be well informed by their trusted source of information which they are is genuine and reliable. This is not always the case because the media takes advantage of the trust the public has given them for granted. The way media covers crime and violence related stories are far from being fair to the public and sometimes victims and the accused.
First, media exhibit racism and racially based biases when reporting crimes. Media's treatment of white killers and suspects is much better compared it gives to the black victims. Biased reporting is evident in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager with his hands up by the police in Missouri for no clear reason. The police claimed he had assaulted an officer, which was far from the truth as seen by the nation since many blacks had been killed in a similar way. The media quickly created a wrong criminal image for the teenager Michael Brown which was a surprise to the nation (Wing, 2014). In a precise replica of this scenario, Trayvon Martin, a teen from Sanford suffered a similar case as that of Brown. The media “The New York Times,” rushed in and reported that Trayvon had just been given a suspension from school after he was found in possession of marijuana (Nittle, 2012).
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Second, media distorts this information about the crime that it feeds to the public. Violence and crime acts are things that occur once in a while, maybe once in four months or even a year. When an act of violence or crime happens, the media is sure to run one story about the occurrence for at least a week. This can be done just by changing just a minor detail, thus making the public to think that violence is a common thing within the state (Understanding how the media reports crime, 2016).
Third, media reporting of crime is negatively affected by the media's commercial interests. As a result, media is guilty of reporting fake crime stories (Trinko, 2016) or exaggerating crime reports (Fiducia, 2012) with the aim of getting favourable ratings. Exaggeration and false reports cause public panic as enlarging the problem at hand subsequently influencing public policy (Fiducia, 2012).
In a nutshell, media reporting of crime is biased and unfair to victims and accused. Media may cause panic among the members of the public. Media exaggerates the happenings regarding the extent and the nature of a particular crime thus Media being the most trusted sources to give accurate information regarding what is happening on the ground, should act with fairness and accuracy in their data. They should stop judging and implicate on victims what is or was not a part of them. When they provide the public with inaccurate data, they end up misleading them thus turning a small issue to a big disaster which instils fear in public. Therefore the media should change the way it addresses crime and violence issues to the public so that their sources can maintain the public loyalty.
References
Fiducia. (2012). The Media’s Influence on Criminal justice policy. Retrieved from fiduciaproject.eu/new/15/the-media-s-influence-on-criminal-justice-policy
Nittle, N. K. (2012, October 17). White Crime Victims Favored In Mainstream Media Reports. From Maynard Media Center on Structural Inequity. Retrieved from mije.org/mmcsi/criminal-justice/white-crime-victims-favored-mainstream-media-reports.
Trinko, K. (2016, December 1). Widespread Coverage of Liberal Hate Crimes ‘Study’ Shows Media’s Fake News Problem. The Daily Signal. Retrieved from http://dailysignal.com/2016/12/01/widespread-coverage-of-liberal-hate-crimes-study-shows-medias-fake-news-problem/
Understanding how the media reports crime. (2016). Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime . crcvc.ca/publications/media-guide/understanding/
Wing N. (2014). When The Media Treats White Suspects And Killers Better Than Black Victims. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/14/media-black-victims_n_5673291.html.
