Local News and Crime

For this week I thought I would take a look at our own local news on how they cover stories on crime in the area. I don't often watch local news, but I remember one evening, a couple of weeks ago the local news station was on in my room and all I heard were stories about a pregnant teenager being shot at her birthday party or a little boy sharing drugs with his friends on the playground. However, I wanted to look more closely at coverage of crime on local Boston news and what form it took. Going on the website for WBZ TV Boston and looking through the video archives, it did not take much effort to locate plenty of the kinds of stories I was looking for. In Gilliam and Iyengar's "Prime Suspects: The Influence of Local Television News on the Viewing Public" they argue that almost all coverage of crime will follow a certain "script" that people can come to expect when watching the local news. It is probably the formula that news stations have found captures the biggest audience. In a way the news stations are forced to create this drama, that is not to say that they are making up the crimes, but that they need to portray it a certain way so that in a sense it is like all those crime scene TV shows that people love to watch. Gilliam and Iyengar suggest in their article that their are two crucial elements to the crime script are that the crime must be violent and it must have a suspect. They say the coverage must have a "cast" which you will see over again when their are reports on the same story. Like in TV shows the audience becomes familiar with the characters and sympathize with the victims while wanting to see the suspects brought to justice. Sometimes I wonder if people ever lose sight of reality always watching stories like these on the news because it is not just a show where things always happen in a clear cut way and in the same pattern every time. I found a story about the recent attack on a mother and her daughter, that resulted in the of the mother and hospitalization of the daughter. In watching the initial reports on the attacks it is all very well scripted as Gilliam and Iyengar might say. They give details about the violence and brutality of the crime and about the victims. There are also shots of the typical crime scene with area marked off with yellow tape. They show the responses of friends and neighbors who are all shocked that such a thing could happen in their picturesque little town. Then, there of course is the description of the possible suspect, or suspects in this case. It all seemed to fit this model that most local news stations seems to follow. To check out the actual video click on this link for: New Hampshire Town Reeling From Murder.