The News Media's Influence on Criminal Justice Policy: How Market-Driven News Promotes Punitiveness

This Article argues that commercial pressures are determining the news media's contemporary treatment of crime and violence, and that the resulting coverage has played a major role in reshaping public opinion, and ultimately, criminal justice policy. The news media are not mirrors, simply reflecting events in society. Rather, * Charles L.B. Lowndes Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law, [email protected]. I would like to acknowledge the Eugene T. Bost, Jr., Research Professorship of the Charles A. Cannon Trust No. 3, for its support of my work. I would like to thank my research assistants Randy Cook, Scott Edson, Juliet Karastelev, Kimberly McCaughey, Michael Meyer, Melanie Merry Roewe, and Johanna Stein. Their work was of the highest quality, and this Article would not have been possible without them. Thanks also to James Hamilton, Maxwell McCombs, Ted Chiricos, and Sarah Eschholz for generously sharing their research, and to Darryl Brown, Dan Filler, Tim Kuhner, Richard McAdams, Marc Miller, Robert Mosteller, Eric Muller, Sam Pillsbury, Andy Taslitz, Ronald Wright, and the participants in the faculty workshops at Boston College, the University of Illinois, Florida State University, and the University of Texas for their helpful comments on drafts of this manuscript. Earlier versions were also presented at the Hoffinger Colloquium, Center for Research in Crime and Justice of the New York University School of Law, and at the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law's Conference on Politics, Crime and Criminal Justice in Canberra, Australia.