Misconceptions In Crime: Sensational Crime

Skyler Huson
Professor Danielle Cooper
Introduction to Criminal Justice (03H) CJST 1100
2 December 2015
Misconceptions in Crime: Sensational Crime
Crime happens everywhere, anytime, to any degree from purse snatching to serial killing. To the average person, the latter of those two sound more interesting. This is the concept of a sensational crime. These are the type of crimes that everyone seems to be talking about from the biggest news broadcasts to your family around the dinner table. Crimes that are atrociously gruesome, unimaginably cruel, or show a rare level of inhumanity make it into the category of sensational. These crimes are often the subject of news reports and under the public eye. A study done by Herbert Gans in 1979 remains

true in the efforts to categorizing news still in 2015. Gans published Deciding What’s News after spending ten years observing major television and magazine newsrooms. He stated that there were three main focuses in what was reported: known people, unknown people in unusual circumstances, or a prescribed set of activities. It is for these reasons that the concept of a sensational crime exists, and why misconceptions that follow the overexposed crimes are created. The categories Gans created also follow the interests of the public. Media outlets such as television news, magazines, radio shows, social media, and less commonly newspapers choose what to expose to the world, and in doing so they choose within the stated categories to ensure the success of the story. Since the public gives the initial push for interest in such stories, the media follows through with what the public desires. The prescribed set of events described by Gans over thirty years ago is largely filled with the crimes that intrigue or disgust the public.
The misconceptions created from this sway in reporting include a belief that these overexposed crimes happen in the same frequency in which they are reported on.

Misconceptions created by media over sensational crimes also deal greatly with race, as much of the reported crime in recent news does. Sensational crimes reported in the news are exaggerated forms of reality, the worst situation that could possibly happen. The public assumes because this is what is presented to them that these crimes are happening as often as they do on the news, perhaps even more. The public assumes that because murder, even multiple murders, occur in every crime show episode that big cities must be full of killers and dead bodies are everywhere. It is not just news and media outlets reporting crime in the real world. Crime is everywhere, including fictitious items such as a best selling book, the top rated television show. Crime is not just on the front page of every paper, and every night on the six o’clock news, it is engrained in our entertainment as well. However, this blatant yellow journalism with the motto, “if it bleeds, it leads” was only created because the public is more interested in such stories of violence, gore, inhumanity, police triumph, and errors. The public wants to hear about what the real crime is to compare to the fictitious nature of shows, books, movies, and more. Such as previously stated, a serial killer is more interesting than a purse snatcher to the general public looking for entertainment. Small crimes, petty crimes, even unsuccessful crimes are not worthy of news coverage because it does not hold a candle to the elaborate schemes and gore of crime television. Sensational crimes like murders get more attention from the public but are much less likely to occur than the common domestic violence call. Dubbed “Tabloid Justice”, the act of reporting crimes for entertainment is prevalent, and often details are dissected and analyzed by all forms of media in a

sort of frenzy. Police and the media have a mutually beneficial relationship in this sense since police wish to have a positive view under public eye, and media wants to ascertain as much crime knowledge for the purpose of tabloid justice.
The information provided to the general public by the media is correct, though exaggerated. Crimes viewed as sensationalistic are reported on more, constructing an incorrect view in the public eye that these occur more often. Anyone who understands that news companies pick and choose what to report on and what not to would understand that this is a common misconception. Though those who consume the knowledge fed to them through various media outlets or social media and adopt these as facts may not be able to see that what is reported is not everything that is occurring in the world. However there is another type of misconception held in the public eye, but ever so fondly. This type of consumer takes news from media outlets and establishes views from the information that are misconstrued simply because the information is not a full view of crime that occurs. Consumers such as this may be willing to have their views corrected, but there are few plausible ways to know the opinions of said consumer who does not mean to be misinformed. Due to the limited nature of reported news, many consumers do not have the full statistics of committed, reported, and solved crimes. It is in my belief that there has been more of an effort to realize the true nature of crime in recent years. With many civil rights battles ongoing there has been a push by the public to understand a wider range of crime and the true statistics instead of what is solely reported on by the media for the purpose of entertainment, fear or otherwise intrigue.