Building a Better Beat: A New Approach to Public Safety Reporting

Why It Matters 

Sensationalism shows up in both story selection and style. Here’s the standard playbook: newsrooms pick a lurid crime or an alarming crime statistic and use hyperbolic language to tell the story for days on end. These crimes, often pitched as news by police officials, typically feature a white and/or wealthy victim and an alleged perpetrator who is Black and/or an immigrant. Similar harm experienced by poor people and people of color–particularly Black and indigenous people–is ignored or covered far less intensely. Unlike major investigative stories, which usually appear once or a handful of times, these stories result in daily articles and, in the modern context, all-day coverage on cable news with corresponding push notifications. 

Serious harm warrants serious coverage, but a large share of these stories do not meet that standard. The stories rarely paint a full picture of the people impacted by the violence or a sober analysis of relevant context, focusing instead on the sensational details of the crime. In the most extreme cases, these stories are presented as representative of an alarming trend that demands action, even when no such trend exists. 

Mark Fishman and LynNell Hancock carefully documented how this phenomenon played out in New York City during the 1970s and Denver during the 1990s, respectively. Fishman’s work in Manufacturing the News, “Assembling a Crime Wave,” illustrates this clearly. Fishman was embedded in a newsroom, working on a separate project, and ended up documenting how news reporters at several stations in New York City unintentionally reported – and thus created –  a nonexistent "crime wave" in the late 1970s. What began as an attempt by journalists to organize their crime coverage into a compelling theme turned into frequent, sensationalized coverage of violence against the elderly, with more and more incidents being fed directly to newsrooms from the police. There was no actual increase in violence or harm against the elderly during this time period, but that didn’t stop the creation of inevitable new categories of “victims” (typically elderly white people) and “aggressors” (typically young Black and brown men.) Hancock documented another media-concocted “crime wave,” this time surrounding a false narrative of out-of-control youth violence in Denver during the summer of 1993, that resulted in a flurry of punitive legislation dismantling the state’s juvenile justice system, allowing more children to be charged as adults, approving construction of more prisons to house children, and the eliminating parole for children as young as 14. 

A similar pattern shows up in stories about crime data. When police departments release index crime data, news coverage often highlights the most sensational statistics–the biggest increases, the highest rates–while downplaying large decreases and record lows. One way this happens is by breaking up crime data into smaller subcategories so that one particular subcategory that is rising can be reported on. For instance, an outlet may report on a rise in carjackings during a particular time interval but ignore decreases in the larger category of robbery. Reporting on crime data also tends to focus on week-to-week, month-to-month, or year-to-year fluctuations and fails to note longer historical trends, which often (but not always) paint a far less alarming picture. 

In stories about individual crimes and crime statistics, journalists frequently rely on alarmist language that evokes fear. This is especially true of terms that convey powerful and uncontrollable natural forces, like a “wave” or a “surge.” Metaphors like this are frightening because they imply helplessness at the hands of a powerful force, and when people feel scared, evidence shows that they become more punitive. In fact, scholars have found that the standard script of news stories about crime and violence makes people more likely to support policies like the death penalty and “three strikes” laws. Every year, the evidence base proving that these punitive policies do not actually reduce harm and disproportionately impact poor people and people of color grows larger. 

All of these practices distort public opinion and public policy, failing to uphold the values of both public education and serving the public good. Today, the public is ill-equipped to understand increases or decreases in index crime and unaware of many of the programs and policies proven to reduce these crimes and other types of harm. 

Why It Matters

Contemporary crime reporting largely paints people of color–particularly Black people–as drivers of crime and white people as victims of crime. Studies analyzing news coverage in media markets across the country have found Black people overrepresented and white people underrepresented as perpetrators of crime relative to their actual arrest rates (which are themselves rife with racial bias). Similarly, coverage of missing women and girls varies considerably based on race and employment status, with white women and girls receiving more coverage than women of color and women with jobs in the formal economy receiving more sympathetic coverage than missing sex workers. These choices activate racial stereotypes and increase support for punitive criminal legal policies that are relatively ineffective at reducing harm and disproportionately impact people of color and poor people.  

The language and imagery used in these stories create similar problems. People directly impacted by the criminal legal system have been calling for an end to the use of labels like “felon” for decades, because they find them dehumanizing and stigmatizing. On top of the individual harm done, recent research shows that these labels also affect public opinion and public policy. When people are exposed to news stories that rely on labels (“habitual offender”) instead of descriptors (“person with prior convictions”), they are more likely to describe the person in question using negative words like “dangerous” or “scary.” Exposure to these labels also impacts support for criminal legal policies. This research found that support for criminal legal reforms (for example, allowing people with felony convictions to vote or reducing the length of some prison sentences) was roughly 50/50 among people exposed to news articles using neutral descriptors (like “person with a felony conviction”) and was much lower among people exposed to news articles using labels (like “felon”). 

Images used in crime stories follow a similar pattern. Because Black people are disproportionately arrested and those arrests are disproportionately covered by the news media, many of the mugshots that appear in the news are of Black people. These images, like the stories they appear in, prime negative racial stereotypes. In addition to these systemic impacts, mugshots harm the individuals in the photographs. Mugshots often remain online and searchable long after a person’s case concludes. For some people, that means their mugshots remain online even if their charges are dropped. For others, it means that the image follows them after they have served a prison sentence and are trying to put their lives back together. In some cases, decades-old mugshots have inhibited people from finding jobs or housing. 

All of these practices undermine the common journalistic goal of avoiding bias. After George Floyd was murdered in 2020, news outlets across the country pledged to address the legacy of racism in their workplaces and in their reporting. Reconsidering the stories that are told about crime, and the words and images used to tell them, are essential steps in the process of reducing bias in the newsroom. 

Newsrooms often rely solely on police, prosecutors, and other criminal legal officials (like prison and jail staff, probation officers, and judges) as the only sources in their crime and public safety coverage. Claims from these sources frequently go unverified, and individual officials and departments that have lied to the public in the past continue to be quoted without disclaimers about their previous unreliability. When other sources are included, the perspectives of those sources, the placement of their quotes, and even the language used to describe them tend to reinforce the police narrative. These choices allow criminal legal officials to disproportionately influence the way that people understand safety in their communities. 

How does this show up in the news?  

New York Police Department Commissioner Dermot Shea repeatedly claimed that bail reform was responsible for an increase in crime, despite data from his own department disproving his claim. Even after that data was made public, he continued to make this false claim, and the news media continued to unskeptically publish those claims. See below for a timeline of these events. 

Early 2020: NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea repeatedly blames bail reform for an increase in crime.

• NYPD commissioner links crime spike to bail reform — says judges must be able to hold repeat offenders, New York Daily News
• Spike in January serious crime is fixable, says NYPD Commissioner Shea, Newsday

July 8, 2020: NY Post obtains data that shows Shea’s claims are inaccurate 

• NYPD’s own stats debunk claims of bail reform leading to spike in gun violence, New York Post

Late 2020-Mid 2021: Reporters continue to quote Shea making the same false statements without fact checking or noting the documented history of inaccuracy.

• NYPD’s top cop blames bail reform for ‘14-year high’ in NYC shootings, New York Daily News
• NYC Police Commissioner Dermot Shea promises safer 2021 after chaotic year, ABC7
• NYPD: Blame bail reform, not cops, for surging gun violence, ABC10

October 14, 2021: Shea walks back his claims that bail reform caused an increase gun violence when questioned by the legislature

• During Questioning In Albany, NYPD Commissioner Shea Backtracks On Bail Reform Law As Big Reason For Gun Violence, CBS News New York

November 2021: Reporters continue to quote Shea’s theories about the crime increase without noting his self-admitted history of inaccuracy. 

• NYPD boss Dermot Shea partly blames crime spike on failure to keep suspects on Rikers, New York Post
• NYPD: Shootings, homicides fall in October; 2021 serious crimes spike, Newsday

Failing to include the names of sources prevents readers from learning more about the motivations and credibility of the people doing the talking. Do they have a history of dishonesty? What candidates and legislation have they supported in the past? Are they currently involved in a political campaign or policy advocacy? Moreover, if the information provided turns out to be inaccurate, anonymity prevents readers and other journalists from knowing that these particular sources are not trustworthy and forecloses public accountability for spreading false information in the future.

Why It Matters

Each of these practices above is an issue in and of itself, but they also reinforce one another in ways that add up to a problem larger than the sum of its parts: a media environment that uncritically reflects the perspectives of police. This environment undermines two of the core values of journalism: accuracy and impartiality. We’ll take a closer look at how these practices compromise those values below. 

First up: accuracy. This is simple. Police, prosecutors, and other criminal legal system actors have a long, indisputable track record of purposefully lying and otherwise disseminating inaccurate information. Sometimes those lies become big new stories when they are uncovered by bystander video, body camera footage, or whistleblowers, as in the case of the murders of George Floyd and Tyre Nichols or the police response to the Uvalde school shooting. Sometimes lies and inaccuracies come to light many years after the fact, when it’s too late for journalists to meaningfully correct the record. Buzzfeed uncovered 62 examples of police reports that did not match video footage of the interactions, the vast majority of which received limited media coverage until this investigation. And it is far from certain that individual police officers who lie to the media will be treated with skepticism the next time around. In fact, CNN recently hired John Miller, the NYPD’s former Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence & Counterterrorism for the New York Police Department, who lied under oath about the well-documented existence of a surveillance program targeting Muslim people in the wake of 9/11. 

Next up: impartiality. Police, prosecutors, and other people who work in the criminal legal system are not neutral arbiters of fact; they are a powerful interest group with professional and financial incentives, political views, and policy goals. While there is, of course, some diversity of opinion across this group, prosecutors’ associations, police unions, and correctional officer unions have a long history of coordinated political activity, from endorsing and financially supporting candidates to lobbying for and against legislation. Like other interest groups, police departments and prosecutors’ offices focus time and money on strategic communications. For example, a Los Angeles Times investigation found that the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department had 67 full-time public relations employees just between those two departments in one city alone. Police departments have also paid public relations firms to assist them in responding after their officers are involved in acts of violence or racism. 

Impartiality is particularly relevant when journalists are considering stories pitched by criminal legal officials. For example, media coverage of crime data often omits the political context within which authorities are releasing the data. Police officials choose when to pitch crime data as newsworthy (for example, holding a press conference) and when to quietly release it without fanfare (for example, posting it online without comment). Officials may push particular stories or frames about crime trends when there is an ongoing political battle over a piece of legislation, a prosecutorial or judicial policy, or budget allocations. (Sidebar: For example, the journalist Nicholas Slayton pointed out that the Albuquerque police chief released statistics showing that crime declined in the city only after an election in which crime and police staffing levels were key issues.) While these political battles may be reported on independently, they are not often mentioned in coverage of crime data, despite the fact that the source of this data–police departments–are political interest groups with their own explicit incentives and policy goals. 

This documented history of dishonesty and coordinated political activity warrant efforts by reporters to seek out a diverse array of sources when writing about crime and criminal legal issues. Of course, many news stories do rely on sources other than police and prosecutors, but that step alone doesn’t guarantee that the piece will present a range of perspectives and context appropriate for evaluating those perspectives. A news story quoting a prosecutor who believes prison sentences are too short, a state legislator sponsoring a bill to make prison sentences longer, and a voter who supports the legislation won’t paint a full picture of the debate about incarceration and its impact on public safety. When journalists do include sources with multiple perspectives on an issue, the sources that oppose status quo responses to crime are often quoted at the very end of the story where people are less likely to see them. This is particularly important in today’s media landscape, in which most readers consume 60% or less of online news articles. In direct contradiction to one of the central stated goals of journalism (impartiality), these practices prioritize the perspective of powerful actors in the criminal legal system over the millions of people impacted by that system each year. 

The language in these stories also tends to reinforce the status quo. Research shows that the passive voice is more often used to describe killings committed by police than those committed by civilians and that that sentence structure impacts public opinion. Word choice also reinforces police narratives in more subtle ways. What makes a culture change “major?” What makes a policy “lenient?” What makes a politician “tough on crime?” These terms are subjective and imprecise, involving normative judgments that may mean different things to different people. By defining what counts as “lenient,” the journalist takes a policy position that isn’t objective. To tease out one of the examples listed above, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s policies would not have been considered lenient in many other countries or in the United States for most of its history. And, in fact, a detailed analysis of the policy memo found that it would have little impact on charging decisions. A large body of research shows that many policies deemed “tough on crime” are not effective at reducing crime at all. These normative statements make it more difficult for news consumers to make their own judgments. More broadly, by setting the boundaries for what counts as “major” or “significant” or what minor tweaks would constitute “remaking” the system, this kind of editorializing in news stories constrains the public’s ability to imagine the full spectrum of policy choices.

Authors:

Laura Bennett

Alec Karakatsanis

Contributors:

Andy Friedman

Nicole Mendoza

Naomi Murakawa

Ben Perelmuter

Hannah Riley 

Julia Udell