3. What makes crime news??
• 1) personal competence and sensibility
• 2) collective integrity
• 3)moralised political conflicts
• 4) white collar crime
4. Crime news, crime stats and
reader interest
• Crime news has been continually present in
newspapers for around 150 years. It is argued
that more educated readers ignore crime
news or read it with superficial interest.
• On an average day, stories on crime and
justice consist of about 15% of the total
articles read.
• Comparisons of crime news and crime
statistics have produced consistent findings.
5. • Official statistics report more common crimes
than ‘white-collar’ crimes, however news reports
present white-collar crimes more as people like
bourgeoisies would commit these higher end
crimes than proletariats. Eg, lower class people
committing crimes like stealing a toothbrush
from Tesco.
• Out of a set of new stories within new york
newspapers, 66% were concerned with white
collar crimes, whereas 22% were concerned with
common crimes.
6. White collar crime
• White-collar crime refers to financially
motivated nonviolent crime committed by
business and government professionals
• White collar crime in the news is constructed
in a dialect relationship to the moral routines
of audiences every day life.
7. Daily crime reading as a
ritual moral exercise.
• Assaults on property are seen as far less news
worthy than assaults on a person. This
indicates that readers’ concerns are more
humanistic than materialistic. This is because
an assault on a person is more relatable and
evokes emotion. Most of the stories on
violent crime in contemporary newspapers
can be understood as serving readers’ interest
in recreating daily the moral sensibilities
through shock and impulses of outrage.
8. • Similarly, the second group of crime news
stories; those that depict threats to sacred
centers of society, are deemed interesting
because readers understand that the
questions of physical safety are of minor
relevance compared to questions about
collective moral character.
• Many people who watch crime stories on the
news recognise and use the moral tale within
the story. This allows them to relate towards
the story which they can comment on but do
not have to deal with.
9. • Stories that reflect pre-existing tensions
reflect among groups, people in political
conflicts of hunger the need for moral
changes to use against their opponents.
• Crime news takes its interest from the most
recent moral panic and not the actual focus
on the crime. For example, if a terrorist attack
was to happen, many news outlets would
focus on the safety of the country after the
attack and not what has just happened.
