Threats, Harms, and Benefits

Democratic institutions in Portugal, Spain, and Italy are younger than those in the Protector and Watchdog countries, thus journalism ethics and professionalism are less established. Journalists’ eagerness to tell crime stories even when official information is unavailable indicates a leaning toward Watchdog values: seeing their primary professional duty as informing the public and keeping a wary eye on the criminal justice. However, reporters’ faith in protecting accused persons’ presumption of innocence by shielding their identities signals a sympathy with Protector countries’ codes. Their “ambivalence” may allow journalists to embrace aspects of both Watchdog and Protector systems and create something new. However, news practices are still deeply rooted in a partisan past. Autonomy is receding further as layoffs and newsroom closings make employment more precarious. In this environment, the Internet is a mixed blessing. It opens up new opportunities for expression even as it undermines the news media’s traditional economic foundation.

Introduction

This chapter sets up the thesis of the book: Crime coverage practices serve as a lens to consider underlying cultural attitudes to concepts like privacy, public, public right to know, and justice. Differing decisions, for example, about whether to name suspects, suggest varying beliefs about the value of privacy and the public right to know. The chapter outlines the methodology and situates the work in relation to Daniel Hallin and Paulo Mancini, whose book Comparing Media Practices influenced the selection of countries, as well as the initial premises. We name the ten countries that comprise the basis of our comparison, and briefly introduce our three media models: the Protectors (Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden), the Watchdogs (the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and the United States), and the Ambivalents (Spain, Italy, and Portugal). The chapter concludes with a brief overview of individual book chapters.

Is There a Way Forward for Ambivalent Journalists?

An emergent journalism may blend the best practices of the Watchdog and Protector models and inspire a more mature journalistic approach. Ethical hierarchies are used to critique current practices and suggest better ways. Journalism, hampered by a relatively opaque legal system, is tempted to over-dramatize stories. History and politics help explain a system of clientelism in reporting; a partisan and competitive news media; weak professionalism; and a definition of public interest, which fails to fully embrace journalism’s mission in shaping an informed citizenry. News organizations bear the mark of a press once owned by political parties that weaponized them in ideological battles. This history prevents journalists from readily reaching common professional ground. Serious reforms that ground journalism in public service are developing. Elements of a morality of justice and a morality of care are nascent in current practices and reform movements

Ambivalent Behavior in Portugal, Spain, and Italy

In the three countries that make up the Ambivalent model—Italy, Spain, and Portugal—police may or may not choose to inform crime reporters when a suspect has been arrested. Arrest records do not become public until official charges are filed, and the prosecutor/judge determines that the suspect will be held for trial. This relatively closed approach protects both the police investigation and the suspect’s right to the presumption of innocence, but unofficial actions reflect a lack of commitment to those purposes. The seal on records can spring leaks. Police and prosecutors dole out details about the accused and the alleged crime to the press—but they often favor news outlets whose coverage they like. Reporters, in turn, court police for such favors with the stories they produce. If police are not forthcoming, reporters often seek details from witnesses and hope police will confirm what they find.

Protectors’ Accountability

The makeup of the press councils in Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands, and their accountability systems, are described. News organizations in Protector countries earn trust, at least in part, by acknowledging that the public has the right to a voice in how news is produced and presented. The nature and effects of story frames are discussed. The coverage of the years-long trial in Germany of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) members accused of killing immigrants is explored for what it says about immigration and mainstream media’s handling of it. This chapter considers how globalization and immigration threaten both the posture of criminal justice systems and the protective press practices that reflect and reinforce those policies. Using the works of Emmanuel Levinas and James Carey, this chapter explores the ethical grounds for policy in these countries and consider the comparative work about prisons and attitudes toward crime by Michael Tondry and his colleagues.

Conclusion

Comparison across national borders lifts the blinders that lead journalists to assume that their particular crime coverage practice is the right—or only—one. It shows differences and similarities and makes visible journalism’s shared mission: to provide citizens with the information they need for reasoned discussion and self-determination. In order to keep the public trust, the press must weigh the public’s need (not want) to know against the harm publicity can cause. That need is the information that will allow audiences to address what is unraveling the edges of the social fabric. The Internet now carries crime stories across geographic boundaries. Journalists are obliged to deal with diversity inside and outside their own countries. When a community loses control because others usurp its storytelling power, that community’s ability to conduct public business is jeopardized. Conversations across boundaries are needed to address what threatens the right to self-definition and self-determination.

What the Watchdogs Watch, Why, and Why Watching Matters

Watchdog reporters’ crime coverage practices are contrasted with those of the Protector countries; while the latter largely trust their institutions and government officials, Watchdogs do not. Thus, they routinely publish extensive details about an offense, an alleged perpetrator, and victims. This chapter explores how, on the one hand, these details can lead to an exploration of larger social issues, but, on the other hand, they can also lead to sensationalism. Watchdogs want few limits on transparency, but they can lose sight of what people need to know, and cater to capitalist ends, rather than sound, journalistic ones. Journalists in this model see their primary obligation as informing the people because sunlight is the best disinfectant. Using an historical perspective, we outline how the principles of the Enlightenment, the emphasis on the individual, and an abiding belief in peoples’ ability to be rational, underlie this ethical perspective and influence crime coverage choices.

What the Protectors Protect

Although a suspect’s name and other identifying details are part of the public record or supplied to reporters by police, news media in the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany routinely protect suspects and even convicted criminals from public exposure. We group these countries in a Protector model. Journalists said they weigh their obligation to inform the public against (1) protecting the defendants’ families—especially if they have children; (2) respecting the right to the presumption of innocence; and (3) avoiding dissemination of information that could damage the defendant’s reputation and/or chance for reintegration. Protector countries share a faith that many criminals can successfully reintegrate into society. Journalists are most likely to protect the private person accused of a crime in the private sector and least likely to protect a public figure or official accused of a public crime.

Accountability

Crime coverage practices vary widely among the models, but these variations are under threat in an increasingly globalized world. To consider what is at stake, this chapter details some of the threats to preserving cultural difference, and then suggests journalists in each Watchdog country consider borrowing aspects of Ireland’s approach as one possible way to push back as a profession against government threats of legislation, business incursions, profit motivations, and, most importantly, to counter, in ways unique to each country, others’ influence on crime coverage. The chapter discusses the professionalism of journalism and accountability measures, like news ombudspersons and press councils, to better include voices of citizens and shore up flagging credibility. Finally, the importance of maintaining individual crime coverage practices is asserted because without a distinct voice, all journalism risks defaulting to an exaggerated tell-all American or British style that is synonymous with, and driven by, the Internet, not by best practices.

Risks and Challenges for the Watchdogs

Based on sound Enlightenment ideals, Watchdog journalists’ push to publish names of accused persons and details of crimes has merit: Citizens are seen as rational and considered capable of deciding for themselves whether and how to act on information. But the biggest threats to the commitment to giving citizens the information they need to be free and self-governing are economic ones. In this model, crime coverage decisions can be swayed, consciously or not, by considerations like competition, ownership, shrinking job markets and newsrooms, technology, globalization, and social media. In some instances, accused persons are “monstered” by news coverage for sensationalist ends. Drawing on work by Carol Gilligan, Robert Reiner, James Carey, and others, we argue that the justice orientation central to Enlightenment beliefs must be complemented by a responsibility orientation where people acknowledge their connections to one another as part of the larger social fabric.