History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.
This is not a post so much as a request for someone to answer a question that has always vexed me: Why do certain murder cases become national news? Why do I know anything at all about Scott and Laci Peterson? Thousands of people die at the hands of others every year. Why is it that some cases become national news and others do not? Why is it that the victims in these cases are always white? Why is it that the Dallas Morning News has anything about a California murder case on its front page today?
I have always been annoyed when a murder has been the lead story in the news when I have lived in cities -- in terms of the hierarchy of important stories, murders ought to rate pretty low. Every minute and column inch devoted to the Peterson case takes up space that ought to go to stories not getting the attention they warrant. This is a phenomenon that will always bother me, and if anyone has a reasonable explanation, I would love to hear it.
Van --
i think you raise an excellent point, and one that no one really knows the answer to, though i have my opinions. Is it the media's responsibility to be above the market or does media respond to it? Now obviously no media source is free of market pressures, but should those pressures not be intrinsically determined by the market for news? In other words, while the Times and Post and WSJ all are under market pressures, it is the market of ongoing news cycles and interpretations of that news. We are highly unlikely to see page Three girls in the WSJ because the market that the WSJ serves is, I daresay, above those sorts of things. Shouldn't television news place themselves in that strata instead of the strict ratings crush realm? I have lots of reasons for not liking Fox news, but one has become the fact that it gives substantially more attention to these sorts of cases than do the other networks, at least from my viewing of them. Fox News seems to be all Laci, all the time.
dc
Van L. Hayhow -
12/16/2004
I think this is one of those cases that simply defy rational explanation. I don't think race plays much of a role and I don't think that criminal cases themselves are key. We can all think of cases that have attracted attention that were civil. I also don't think the media frenzy plays a significant role. I think its the other way around. I think the media frenzy continues because the public's attention is there. I knew people who didn't know who OJ was before the trial, but were fascinated by it. When I would ask them why, they couldn't explain it. Neither can I. As for the media, one last comment. I saw Larry King respond one night to criticism during the OJ trial (the complaint being that the media was driving the story). He said (roughly paraphrasing), give us in the media some credit. If no one was paying attention we would go on to something else.
Derek Charles Catsam -
12/16/2004
Ben --
Oh goodness, do not get me going on the Di-xploitation.
Is it possible that we Americans are just hopeless voyeuristic morons?
dc
Ben H. Severance -
12/16/2004
Point taken, which brings us back to square one.
Richard Henry Morgan -
12/16/2004
I think it's the opposite. Those shows rarely fixate on the violent crime itself, but show (for the most part) the criminal getting his just desserts in the end through the hard work and brainpower of public servants.
Ben H. Severance -
12/16/2004
Derek,
I don't know why, and I share your exasperation. Clearly, Americans hunger for the sordid murder story. Just look at the most popular shows: four versions of CSI, three versions of Law & Order, and a host of other programs. There must be a psychological explanation, such as a society that constrains its collective ID through the vicarious act of watching selective violence from start to finish on T.V. Maybe we're sublimating our innate schizophrenia. Maybe I need to stop spouting my charleton pop-psychology. Who knows?
On a different note, I'm about fed up with headline stories on Princess Di and the latest celebrity pregnancies, too.
Derek Charles Catsam -
12/15/2004
I'm going to be posting about this in just a little while, Greg.
dc
Greg Robinson -
12/15/2004
Why is Pedro a Met? That's national news.
Richard Henry Morgan -
12/15/2004
There is a business angle, and an entertainment angle, and an ideological angle. Some are particularly horrific -- like the woman mauled to death by two Presa Canarias in San Franciso, which were tended to by two lawyers for a criminal gang of crytal meth dealers (I kid you not). Some stories are ignored because of race, or gender, or sexual orientation, while others are hyped for exactly the same reason. There was a sensational story some time back about a black girl kidnapped in Philadelphia, who escaped. It was big news for about two days -- until it was discovered that she was kidnapped in a drug dispute -- then the story was dropped. Had Laci Peterson turned out to be a hooker on the side, rather than the perfect victim, I suspect her story would have been smaller.
We all know about the black guy who was dragged to his death by three white guys. Few know about Mark Dale Butts, a 35 year-old white guy beaten to death and beyond recognition with a shovel in May 1998 by a bunch of black men. Or Gary Trzaska, a 41 year-old white guy stomped to death in October 1999 by a gang of black youths. Gary almost made the big news, since he was gay, but the perps were black so ... Then there's the case of 13 year-old Jesse Dirkhising, who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by two gays in September 1999. According to Andrew Sullivan, the Dirkhising case was reported 46 times in the media in the month following his death, while Mathew Separd was reported 3007 times in the following month.
Sometimes the coverage is just a matter of finite time. Something has to fill the hours for court TV, but once one or two are chosen, the rest are ignored.
chris l pettit -
12/15/2004
Well...
JonBenet...sick twisted parents pushing little beauty queen daughter...interesting story...
OJ...former football star murders ex wife and boy toy...gets away with it due to the paucity of the US legal system
When I was an assistant homicide investigator for the Public Defender down in Sarasota, we dealt with a case that was national news at the time, where a former HS football star from Texas travelled to FL after being hired by the ex husband and murdered the woman in front of her quadruplets...was on FoxFiles along with several other shows...Del Toro case...look it up if no one remembers
Susan Smith(?) case...woman drowns two kids in a lake, blames it on a black guy...almost gets away with it
Matthew Shepard case...homosexual hate killing (although that is now being challenged by revisionist historians who support outlawing homosexual activities)
seems to me to be simply a case of sensationalism and what drives the news.
I hate to do this, since the movie has some flaws, but this seems to be one point that Moore made rather well in Bowling for Columbine that was actually stronger than his main argument.
Why certain cases are chosen over others seems to be just a right place/right time circumstance...especially in terms of national exposure. I had many different cases as screwy as the DT case (a guy shooting his wife then himself with a speargun comes to mind...or the guy who slaughtered a woman and her kids like pigs...he lived in a trailer filled with jars of his own urine and broomsticks covered in condoms...and yes, i still try and protect humanity from all the idiots clamouring for the death penalty and war after this), but they all either only made headlines locally or not at all.
Look at papers in other countries...they have the occasional story on something sensational...but not much. At least not in countries that actually advocate peace and human rights.
I have no answer, but I completely agree, expecially about the race issue. Let me put it this way: I don't follow this stuff at all, but have any pregnant black women been murdered in the last five years? If so, I haven't heard about it.
But beyond the fact that the victims in high profile cases are almost always white, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why some cases become high profile. I don't get it either.
So, basically, I'm of no help to you whatsoever.
Sorry.
Steven Heise -
12/14/2004
Because it sells papers. For every person like you, who despises the fact that murders rate the front page, there are all kinds of dunces who believe that's all the first page should cover. I say if people want to read a good tale of murder and gossip, they just need to visit the true crime section of a library or book store. But that's just my take on it all.
