Abstract
The week-long police search for Raoul Moat in Northumbria in northeast England in the summer of 2010 formed a major news event across rolling 24/7 TV stations and newspapers. It is argued that much of the media coverage borrowed heavily from fictional depictions of crime. The boundaries between fictional and news representation are not only blurred by TV shows and movies that adopt a pseudo-verité style imitative of factual reporting but also, the Moat case suggests, by news media that borrow frameworks and formats from fictional media. The paper explores the role of academic commentary in such coverage and the opportunities that this might present for the development of a robust public criminology. It is argued that a better appreciation of the media framing of such events, as outlined in the first part of the paper, is crucial to the development of effective public criminological interventions in media coverage of high-profile criminal incidents.
Introduction
For a few hours during the police operation in July 2010 to capture Raoul Moat, the rural town of Rothbury in Northumbria was subject to an exclusion zone and children in the local middle school remained behind police guard until around 5.30 in the afternoon. As they were eventually allowed to leave, a news team captured the moment that two of the children were reunited with their anxious parents. Live on-air, the presenter asked them about their experience and whether they had been scared. The children reported that being kept under armed guard had been exciting and that they and their friends had been enjoying the rumoured sightings of Moat as the day had unfolded: two school-friends claimed to have seen him in the fields outside the school grounds. The presenter’s concluding comment to the children was that the experience ‘must have been just like being in a TV show’, and they heartily agreed. This short vignette forms the starting point for this paper, which seeks to examine media coverage of the Moat case, drawing partly from the author’s experience as a participant in the media presentation and the opportunity that this gave to observe newsmaking of an extraordinary criminal event at close quarters. It argues that the presenter’s allusion to fictional representations of crime was highly revealing in terms of the media framing of the events. As is outlined further below, the TV coverage of Operation Bulwark (as the police search was named) drew heavily on the format and style of fictional representations of crime and policing. It is argued in the conclusion that an understanding of the news values, style and content of TV coverage of unfolding criminal incidents is central if academics are to be able to use opportunities that they provide as part of the development of public criminology.
On 2 July 2010, Raoul Moat was released from Durham Prison in the northeast of England, following an 18-week sentence for assault. The next day – in the neighbouring city of Newcastle – he confronted his former girlfriend, apparently in the belief that, while he had been in jail, she had begun a relationship with a police officer. Moat shot and seriously wounded his ex-girlfriend and fatally shot her partner. While on the run, on Sunday 4 July, he fired at a police officer, PC David Rathband, who subsequently lost his sight as a result of his injuries. 1 From that point onwards Moat’s movements remain largely unknown, but for nearly a week he evaded police capture in the Northumbrian countryside in and around the town of Rothbury, some 30 miles north of Newcastle. During this period police and media reports linked Moat to an armed robbery of a fish-and-chip shop and to a number of domestic burglaries in the area. The hunt for Moat became a huge police operation as forces across the country provided ‘mutual aid’ and other agencies, such as mountain rescue and the military, also supplied equipment and expertise. It was reported in February 2011 that the Operation had involved 18 police services in mutual aid, and cost more than £1.4 million (Northumbria Police, 2011). Little firm evidence was in the public domain pointing to Moat’s whereabouts but, at around 8 pm on 8 July, he was spotted and cornered beside a river on the edge of the town. After an extended stand-off with police, at around 2 am on 9 July, Moat died of a gunshot wound to the head, inflicted seconds after he was shot by a police Taser. 2 In late September 2011 the inquest jury returned a verdict of suicide in relation to Moat’s death. An inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC, 2011) reported that the X12 Taser used had not been licensed by the Home Office but that the police deployment of this weapon was justified in the highly unusual circumstances of the incident.
This brief outline of events fails to convey the intense and protracted media coverage that surrounded the Moat case; a series of episodes that perfectly fitted the demands of a multiple 24-hour news agenda and one that was framed and presented using style and content familiar from contemporary fictional crime drama. The search for Raoul Moat was an extensive, and expensive, logistical operation for the police and other agencies. It was also a large-scale media event that dominated the news agenda for the week of the hunt and was subsequently sustained as an ‘after event’ debate developed in relation to Facebook coverage of the case, the publication and broadcast of extracts of recordings of Moat in therapy with counsellors, as well as ongoing discussion of the police use of Tasers during the final stand-off. The trial of two men accused of assisting Moat re-ignited media interest in the case early in 2011. During August and September 2011 the inquest into Moat’s death also received considerable media attention. As noted, the police actions were subject to an enquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission but the episode raises equally significant questions about the news agenda and violent crime in a mass media society, and about the role of academic criminologists in a 24/7 media environment.
It is difficult to explain the extent of media coverage of the Moat case solely in terms of the actual gravity or nature of the events themselves. The style and content of some of the media coverage is described in more detail below, and it is clear that the events had many salient characteristics that coincide with dominant news values. The immediate background to the operation was that Moat had shot a policeman, and a series of notes written by Moat that were discovered by police in the course of the search reportedly contained threats to kill officers. The suggestion that Moat intended to pursue a violent vendetta against the police made the events particularly dramatic in a society in which gun crime against law enforcement officers is highly unusual. Any form of homicide by firearm remains relatively rare in England and Wales; 41 incidents were recorded in 2009/10 which amounted to only 7 per cent of all homicides (Smith et al., 2011). The use of firearms against police is also very rare, and any form of homicide of police officers is highly unusual. According to the Police Roll of Honour Trust, six officers died while on duty in 2010, all as a result of road traffic accidents. While prisoners sometimes abscond and offenders seek to evade the authorities, episodes such as the hunt for Moat are highly unusual in terms of longevity and immediacy. Media commentary occasionally suggested that the prolonged search for Harry Roberts, who had shot and killed two police officers and remained on the run in Epping Forest for some 90 days in 1966, was a precedent for the Moat case. That this incident occurred in the relatively distant past indicates something of the novelty of the hunt for Moat. Other factors beyond the nature of the events themselves may also have been significant to understanding of the breadth and depth of media interest. First, the hunt for Moat occurred in the immediate aftermath of the fatal shooting of 12 members of the public by Derrick Bird in Cumbria, a predominantly rural county immediately to the west of Northumbria. 3 Issues of gun crime, already afforded considerable media coverage, were particularly salient in the context of lone gunmen in the countryside. Unlike the Cumbrian events, however, the Moat case was relatively protracted, which provided the media with an opportunity to deliver extensive coverage directly from the scene over an extended period. The significance of media proximity to events is analysed in more detail below, but the Moat case had few precedents as it provided the opportunity for live coverage of an unfolding crime drama.
Observing the observers
This article analyses how the media constructed and developed the story of Raoul Moat, drawing upon the author’s observations as an academic criminologist who participated in TV and radio coverage during the week of the search. Between 6 and 15 July I spent around ten hours, over two days, in Rothbury acting as ‘presenter’s friend’ for one of the main national TV news channels, a role that entailed providing periodic live onscreen commentary on unfolding events at the scene (although it was never entirely clear what we were at the scene of or, indeed, if Moat was not at another scene altogether). Additionally I completed approximately fifteen radio interviews with local commercial and public stations and two recorded interviews with other national TV news programmes. During this period there was considerable opportunity to observe presenters, crew and producers, to watch and discuss the content and style of their coverage, and to reflect with them on the case and the media approach to it. Moreover, and as any contributor will confirm, these interviews were preceded by lengthy pre-broadcast discussions with producers and journalists keen to ensure that some reasonable content would be obtained from my involvement. The discussion that follows is based upon observations of the reporting of the Moat case and reflection upon my role as a participant in this coverage. Methodologically what follows combines elements of participant observation techniques. Boundaries were crossed, though, since I was at some moments a participant and at others an observer, although one with the opportunity to directly engage with media workers as they were actively engaged in reporting and framing events as they unfolded.
What follows includes wider discussion about the circularities and interconnected nature of news media and fictional representations of violent crime. It also raises questions about the role and contribution of academic criminologists to media coverage and the possibilities, and challenges, of using the media to develop a public criminology. It is argued that participation in media coverage of crime remains a significant opportunity for academics to develop a public role for criminology. As in other aspects of public criminology, such as contributions to the formation of policy, for example, significant challenges are faced in terms of developing and communicating an informed analysis of criminal incidents. Through analysis of the format, content and processes of media coverage in an era of 24/7 rolling news it is intended that criminologists might be better placed to contribute effectively to this dimension of public criminology.
News values, form and content in media coverage of the hunt for Raoul Moat
This section of the article analyses the news values, form and content that were evident in coverage of the Moat case. In terms of the range of characters and actors engaged in the coverage, the narrative construction of the story, the use of language and visual images, and the importance of the local scene, the media coverage of the search for Raoul Moat had strong parallels with fictional representations of crime. Each of these aspects of the coverage is detailed below.
Characters and actors
A range of roles, characters and actors were evident in the media coverage of the case. My own role as expert commentator is, as Barak (1988) suggested, a common one in relation to crime and other topics. In Barak’s terms, I was a ‘news prop’ intended to give credence to the onscreen discussion, just as local residents, for example, were props who offered a semblance of public authenticity to the story. Wallace (2008) noted that media coverage of crime incidents commonly include expressions of ‘fear and loathing’ from local residents, who provide an easily accessed source that balances input from expert or authority sources. Yannich’s (2001) study of crime reporting on local TV stations in the US found that contributions from local residents were common, even though they rarely added anything new in terms of information relating to incidents. Yannich argued, however, that by including their expressions of shock and surprise journalists reinforced their framing of an event as an unusual aberration in normally orderly suburban locations. The significance of the rural locality in the representation of the Moat case is discussed more fully below. In the context of the representation of crimes in suburban America, Yannich (2001: 232) argued that the inclusion of contributions from local people played a particular function in structuring and authenticating the story: In every instance, the neighbors did not add any additional factual information to the story. Their purpose was to react to the events. Not surprisingly, they registered their shock and their comments were consistent with the reaction of one community resident: ‘It’s pretty scary; you don’t know who you’re living next to.’ In addition, the reporters set the scene of the story with introductions like the following. ‘Residents are still in a state of shock … their talk is of murder – a brutal crime that most thought could only happen in a big city.’
Various other actors became familiar during the hunt: biographical profiles of Moat himself were developed that relied heavily on video and still images. A much-used image was a photograph of Moat embracing his young daughter. Another set of images that were frequently used were taken from CCTV footage of Moat entering the DIY store from which it seems he purchased some of the material supplies he was using while on the run. Both of these images presented highly normalized activities – family and shopping – which underscored the dominant interpretive framework that focused on Moat’s individual psychopathology. Here was an apparently normal individual who had engaged in unimaginable actions. The explicit and implicit media interpretation of events in these terms is further discussed below.
Other recurring characters in the media coverage included Moat’s mother, who was widely quoted in the press as saying that he would be ‘better off dead’. The reporting of these comments became a matter of concern as notes left by Moat, found during the search, suggested he was following media coverage of the case even while on the run. Since police press conferences became a regular feature of media coverage it is unsurprising that senior police officers such as Detective Chief Superintendent Neal Adamson, and the Chief Constable, Sue Sim, also became recurring characters in the coverage. As an actor might be, the latter’s presentational skills and personal appearance were themselves subject to review in the media. Even the liberal broadsheet the Observer noted that ‘unfortunately for Sim, who is married with two children, it is inevitable that people, especially women, who are suddenly thrust in front of the cameras are all too often judged on their appearance, and both her hairstyle and her penchant for green eye-shadow have been seized on’ (Observer, 2010).
Narrative structure of the story
The sustained nature of the search for Moat coupled with the media’s huge appetite for content relating to it meant that the story was presented in dramatic narrative terms. It was presented in a thematic style, using language that relied heavily on the vernacular of popular cultural representations of crime. Ferrell et al. (2008) have noted that fictional and news media have developed mutually referential relations with criminal justice practice and examples are given below of competing and complementary police–media relations. Traditional boundaries between fictional and non-fictional representations of crime have become increasingly blurred as crime has become a key component of a new ‘infotainment’ genre (Leishman and Mason, 2003; Jewkes, 2011). Much of the analysis of this has focused upon the ways in which TV shows have adopted a realist genre that mimics the authenticity apparently offered by news media (Ferrell et al., 2008; Mason, 2003). As Dowler et al. (2006) have noted, the influence of real-crime investigation is evident both in terms of the style and format of fictional cop shows and extends to the borrowing of storylines from real-life cases. Less widely noted has been the trend in reverse, such that factual news media coverage of crime adopts a framework, in relation to both content and style, derived from fictional cultural representation.
The central story of the police search was maintained by a series of recurring sub-themes. Some of these developed in an ad-hoc manner, such as when (as happened on three occasions) letters written by Moat during the hunt were uncovered or when mobile phones were found or potential hideouts identified and searched by police. These followed a media format that mirrored their real-time development as TV and radio crews and police raced to various significant locations and then both endured drawn-out observation as searches were conducted and sightings investigated. At times, TV crews sought informal advice from passing officers and drew upon this in their onscreen presentation as a means to provide ‘authoritative’ commentary on the progress of the police operation. Authoritative ‘police sources’ were frequently cited, of course, but their status varied considerably from official press statements, to unofficial confirmation and denial of details provided by police press officers to production staff, to the highly informal information or opinions expressed by officers patrolling the area, grateful to have a chance to talk to others about what was unfolding. Reciprocal relations were evident as journalists and crews provided updated information about the case to patrolling officers apparently unaware of latest details, and less familiar with the local area than their media counterparts who had also been drafted widely from across the country but had been in situ a little longer. Low-grade information gleaned informally from officers was reported on-air in terms that conveyed greater credibility but also served to demonstrate the proximity of media staff not only to developing events but also to police operations and strategy. Jewkes (2011) identifies geographic and cultural dimensions of proximity in news reporting of crime, such that incidents are close to the audience. In the context of the 24/7 news environment, TV companies covering the Moat case presented themselves not just as proximate but as central to the ‘action’ itself.
Clearly there were some tensions and differences of interest between the media and police – significantly a two-mile radial exclusion zone imposed around the town of Rothbury extended 5000 feet into the air such that media helicopters could not operate. Media crews talked in conspiratorial tones about plans they had made to breach the zone via obscure back roads so that they could then broadcast with yet greater proximity from within the ‘town under siege’, as the media had dubbed Rothbury. Nonetheless, it was clear that there was also a significant degree of mutual co-dependence. For example, it was apparent that police needed the media in order to relay messages to Moat, to appeal for public information, and to communicate more widely with local residents caught up in the operation. Mawby (2010) has noted that the proliferation in media formats has altered the nature of police relations with journalists in ways that have made police corporate communications teams the stronger partner. He also noted, however, that relations remain highly contested, and are negotiated and dynamic in ways identified in the research since the 1970s (Chibnall, 1977). In the highly unusual operation to capture Raoul Moat the volume of demand for media content meant that both police and journalists sought to utilize new digital formats to communicate with the public and to solicit camera phone footage and eyewitness testimony that would assist operationally and provide broadcast material. The demand for content to fill the 24/7 rolling-news cycle was also apparent from the volume of media requests to academic and other professional commentators, such as practising psychologists and experts in tracking, all of whom were additional ‘news props’.
The dramatic narrative that developed around the hunt for Moat adopted an ‘interpretive framework’ closely derived from popular fictional representations of violent crime. After Moat’s death, a Facebook group, ‘Raoul Moat is a Legend’, was widely condemned by mainstream media and politicians for its celebration of Moat in terms that presented him as a renegade or an outlaw. Whatever moral or ethical judgements are to be made of this characterization it remains that such views developed from readings of news media coverage of the case that presented Moat as a lone outsider on the run from the authorities in ways that refashioned narratives found in many popular cultural forms from early Westerns to murder ballads to contemporary digital gaming genres (Miller, 2007). The rugged individualism Moat represented connoted forms of hyper-masculinity apparent in fictional crime genres (Sparks, 1996). The construction of Moat’s offending in this manner drew upon representations that Rayner (2003: 73–4) argued form a distinctive cinematic genre that draws upon ‘an exaggerated and titillating portrayal of a violent and autonomous masculinity unrestrained by conventional moral or legal checks’.
That the media presents news stories in ways that are readily identifiable to viewers and readers has been widely noted, but the deployment of familiar narratives becomes particularly significant as the mediascape becomes increasingly crowded and viewers need instantly to be ‘hooked’. Attracting and maintaining viewers was clearly a priority for news media in the Moat case and producers and presenters spoke explicitly to one another about the length of time that viewers watched their rolling coverage, a performance indicator that was clearly being measured by the broadcast companies. Securing an average viewing time of 50 minutes compared to the usual average of 12 minutes was a measure of success explicitly celebrated by one TV crew covering the Rothbury incident. For these instrumental and presentational reasons the media had a clear need to present the Moat case in familiar and identifiable terms expected to resonate with viewers. In particular the dominant framework revolved around the apparent psychological profile of Moat, variously in terms of long-standing deep-rooted characteristics that might be traced back to his childhood, the specific incidents that might have ‘triggered’ his violent crime spree – factors that media speculated might be associated with the use of steroids – and the impact that the pursuit might be having on his ‘balance of mind’ and the consequences this might have had for the denouement of the story.
That other elements of the case did not become dominant themes as did the discourse of the psychopathic offender might have been because they were less familiar and more difficult to convey than an explanatory framework drawn closely from fictional portrayals of crime. Policy-related concerns about the lack of inter-agency communication of risk from Durham prison to Northumbria police, or the efficacy and purpose of short-term prison sentences, appeared in media coverage but were subordinate to personalized accounts that focused upon Moat’s apparent psychological profile and biography. Again, this framework for understanding events borrows heavily from popular cultural representation of criminal investigation evident in TV shows from Cracker to Criminal Minds. In keeping with the personalization of news in general and of crime reporting in particular, this case was presented in familiar terms of family breakdown embodied in Raoul Moat. This explanatory framework functioned in terms of the media narrative as an engaging and recognizable story but also has ideological, political and policy implications as it reduces offending behaviour to individual pathology. Greer’s (2003) analysis of media coverage of sex crime similarly noted a focus on the representation of dangerous strangers who posed an external risk to the general public. This portrayal of sexual predators – which distorts the reality that most sexual offending is not committed by strangers but by intimates – is driven, partly at least, by the need to construct a media story in a recognizable narrative format (Greer, 2003). In an era of neo-liberalism, individual not social factors explain offending. Reiner (2007) argued that a ‘crime control consensus’ has emerged during the last two decades based on five pillars – that crime is the pre-eminent policy concern, that the needs of victims ought to be paramount, that crime control works, the normality of high crime rates, and individual responsibility for offending outweighs social causes. Jewkes (2011: 50) noted that news media sustain individualistic narratives of offending such that: deviants are defined in terms of their ‘difference’ and isolated via policies of containment, incapacitation and surveillance. Popularly conceived as a ‘breed apart’, many offenders are judged within a moral framework which constructs them as morally deficient malcontents who must be dealt with punitively and taught the lesson of individual responsibility.
Language, imagery and representation
In addition to developing a narrative arc derived from fictional crime stories, media coverage of the Moat case relied upon language and terminology directly drawn from fictional crime representations, often derived from US popular cultural forms. The search for Moat was sub-titled, in TV graphics, as ‘the hunt for Britain’s most wanted man’: a status entirely generated by the media itself. The language of the US super-max prison was appropriated to the Northumbrian countryside as the exclusion zone around Rothbury placed it, in media parlance, in ‘lockdown’.
Echoing fictional crime genres of various types (Agatha Christie novels or Midsomer Murders, for example), the location itself became a sub-theme in media coverage. Reijnders (2009) has noted that the importance of landscape, couleur locale, to TV detective shows has spawned a tourist industry that allows fans of detective shows to walk in the footsteps of their fictional heroes. Reijnders explored this in the context of Inspector Morse (Oxford), Wallender (Ystad) and Banntjer (Amsterdam), and press reports in the aftermath of the Moat case suggested that a similar phenomenon was developing around the site of his death in Rothbury. On 19 August, for example, the Sun (2010) reported the following under the headline ‘Moat Death Spot is a “Nice Day for the Kids”‘: The riverside spot where murderer Raoul Moat committed suicide was turned into a grisly tourist attraction yesterday. Holidaymakers even took their children to the scene where Moat’s family left the urn that had contained his ashes.
The apparent incongruity between crime and the rural idyll featured heavily in media coverage. A compelling visual representation was briefly provided by TV coverage of two fishermen returning from a local stream carrying their rods and tackle over a stone bridge and past two armed police officers. Their caps and green waders contrasted with the militaristic uniforms of the officers to powerfully emote that this crime scene was disembedded from its normative location in a way that echoed coverage of the Cumbrian shootings a few weeks previously. While the Northumbrian scenery was an important component of the search for Moat, with dense woodland, rocky outcrops, isolated buildings and vast open spaces, and provided attractive visual content, it also served an ideological purpose noted in relation to spatial references in news coverage of crime. Not only did the rugged terrain offer a significant challenge to the search effort, and an important theme in media coverage, but it also provided for a dramatic representation of the police operation that drew clear contrast between the bucolic image of the Northumbrian countryside and a quasi-militaristic police operation aided by hi-tech paraphernalia reputedly last deployed in Afghanistan. Greer (2007: 30) has charted how press and TV coverage of crime increasingly relies upon visual representations that ‘depict immediately, dramatically and often in full colour what it may take several paragraphs to say in words’. Just as media coverage focused on the individual characteristics of offenders frames crime in ways that present a particular ideological framework, so too the sense of place evident in the coverage is also of wider significance. In his analysis of fictional TV crime shows, Sparks (1992: 127) noted that the dominant urban context was sometimes contrasted with rural landscapes in ways that were apparent in the coverage of the Moat case: The countryside seems able to carry a number of different significances: it is a place of quietness and nostalgic idyll, until such time as its order is disrupted and, as in the private home, that disruption seems particularly shocking and reprehensible; but the countryside can also stand for wilderness and primitiveness. It is a strange and unfamiliar place to the hero [anti-hero or villain in Moat’s case] and one at which he is placed at a disadvantage.
The ‘disruption’ wrought on the rural landscape around Rothbury reinforced the normative urban site of violent crime, transplanted from the city to the countryside literally as Moat travelled from Fenham in the west end of Newcastle out to the countryside. Media representations of the rural idyll rely upon a binary hierarchy that implicitly conjures up concomitant understanding of the city as a space in which violent offending is naturalized. Similarly, Yannich’s (2001: 237) analysis of local TV crime news in the United States showed how the reporting of crime in suburban locations was framed in terms that ‘cast the menacing city as the source of dangerous acts that exceed the urban boundaries’. This normative presentation of crime as an urban spectacle is reflected in fictional TV shows, as Sparks (1992) noted, and in new media formats such as computer games. Grand Theft Auto, for example, allows players to explore the crime-ridden decay of urban America such that ‘travelling’ to suburban virtual spaces infects sterile safe localities with the problems of the city (Leonard, 2006; Miller, 2007).
The misconceptualization of crime in the rural context has been much analysed in terms of policy and criminal justice practice but less noted in terms of visual representation in media coverage. Additionally, as with dramatic forms, the media coverage relied upon a series of human and physical props in covering the Moat case: as was noted, these included expert commentators and local residents offering their stories as well as physical objects such as the high-tech equipment used in the search, the letters apparently sent by Moat and the debris left behind at a site where he had apparently camped.
Just as fictional TV cop shows – CSI and, more recently, Southland being prime examples – seek to present a realist vision of crime that places the viewer alongside the patrol officer or homicide detective, so too news media presented an authentic perspective of events on the ground in real time. Commentators unable to attend the location of the events as they unfolded were not used by rolling-news channels, I was told. Partly this was for logistical reasons, since the crews and cameras were at the scene, but also because commentary from the scene had more verisimilitude. Broadcasters provided voyeuristic access that placed the viewer directly at the scene and gave a semblance that the spectator was as engaged as local residents or police. In the aftermath of Moat’s death his brother complained that the live media broadcasts amounted to a twenty-first-century public execution, a further troubling dimension of media proximity (Jewkes, 2011). The media coverage was also proximal in that the media were themselves, while broadcasting and when off-stage, keen to demonstrate their centrality to the ‘action’. The use of criminological commentators from the region also provided a sense of proximity, perhaps based on a misunderstanding that all academic criminologists are closely engaged in local criminal investigations. The tantalizing prospect of live onscreen violence is rarely so apparent as in the Moat case. In the Cumbrian shootings a few weeks previously, to which the media drew comparison in coverage of Moat, the dramatic span was shorter and not captured by TV cameras (although some media replayed CCTV images of the events). The verité and reportage presentation of visual images in the Moat case was coupled with eye-witness testimony of the unfolding drama: passing members of the public, including the family of the schoolgirls quoted at the top of this article, were interviewed as news coverage recycled itself by soliciting commentary from bystanders at the scene whose source often seemed to be the media itself.
Used or abused? Public criminology and news media
The media’s demand for commentary from academic criminologists raises important questions for the developing debate and discussion of public criminology, and it is to these issues that the final section of this article turns. It commences with a – necessarily brief – review of recent debates about the prospects for public criminology, and notes that these have paid relatively little attention to the potential contributions criminologists might make through media work. Analysis of media narratives, values and production processes identified in the coverage of the Raoul Moat case contributes important understanding of the challenges that criminologists face as they engage in public criminology of this type. Some of these challenges relate to the particular logistical and operational demands imposed in the context of live rolling-news coverage. The discussion also considers the extent to which individual contributions can challenge or reshape dominant narrative frameworks, which reflect ideological constructions of offending and crime. This raises fundamental questions about the possibility of expert academic commentary contributing to the development of a more informed public discourse. It is suggested below that it is methodologically difficult to assess the impact that any individual media contribution might make but that collectively academic input has some potential to influence public discourse. Moreover, considerable risks may be anticipated should academics not participate fully in media discussions of crime, not least since to do so might cede ground to those seeking only to advance partisan interests or particular political agendas.
Much of the debate relating to the potential for a public criminology has focused on the possibilities of developing an evidenced-based criminological contribution to crime and justice policy-making. In contrast there has been relatively little consideration of the role of mass communications in the dissemination of criminological perspectives. The status of empirical criminological knowledge as a platform to inform evidenced-based policy-making in crime prevention, for example, has been debated by Sherman (2009), Hope (2009) and Tilley (2009). Critics have argued that academic criminologists risk losing their autonomy and authority by becoming embroiled in policy and practice (Walters, 2006) or that a critical realist approach synthesizing method, theory and policy enables contributions robust in both policy and academic terms (Matthews, 2009). Loader and Sparks (2010a, 2010b) have delineated a range of strategies that might serve to ‘cool down’ debates that have been ‘heated up’ by populist politics such that crime policy has become volatile and unstable. Partly, of course, the intense emotionalism and political calculations driving contemporary crime policy have developed in a reciprocal relationship with media representation of rising lawlessness in the face of which the criminal justice system is found wanting. Currie (2007) argued for a public criminology conceived in broad terms that includes efforts to influence politics and policy-making but that makes it a priority to influence the public more generally. He argued that the challenge in transferring criminological findings into policy formation is often not to convince officials and politicians of the reliability or relevance of expert knowledge but to ensure that the programmes that might arise are regarded as palatable to the general public. On this basis Currie (2007: 179) advocated: In the long run, if we want to move criminal justice policy in the directions many of us would like – from a diminished reliance on incarceration to serious investment in prevention, rehabilitation and community reconstruction – we have to be able to win hearts and minds. In a word, we have to educate – educate, that is, outside the classroom.
The extent to which contributions to news media coverage of criminal incidents of the kind reviewed earlier in this article constitutes extramural criminological education is considered further below. In any event, for many academic criminologists, media demand for expert commentary forms a key opportunity to communicate directly to audiences beyond the academy. Tewksbury et al. (2006) found in their survey of members of the American Society of Criminology that a majority had been interviewed by newspapers and significant minorities by television stations and that around 60 per cent of those who had been interviewed, in either press or broadcast media, were satisfied or very satisfied with their experience. Although their data suggests considerable engagement with media it also reveals a lack of institutional support or encouragement from the universities that employ them, a point echoed by Currie’s (2007) observation that academia fails to value these forms of public criminology.
There is relatively little analysis of criminological contributions to news media, especially in the context of the demands and strictures of a 24/7 news environment. Research has either tended to focus upon the general experiences and perceptions of academic criminologists engaged in contributions to the media in general terms (Greek, 1994; Tewksbury et al. 2006) or on contributions that allow for a premeditated effort to provide criminological perspectives on crime issues in broad terms. In the latter vein, for example, Feilzer (2007) analysed the impact of a weekly local newspaper column, written for two years, which aimed to provide factual criminological information on local crime and criminal justice, and analysis of media coverage itself. In a different context, Barak (2007) reflected on his experience of ‘newsmaking criminology’ in contributions he made to a radio talk show’s coverage of the OJ Simpson trial over a nine-month period in which he made twice-weekly appearances. Both criminologists reflect upon their experiences in terms of media production, the type of content that they included, and the impact that they might have had on their respective audiences. Valuable and fascinating though they are, these studies relate to forms of newsmaking criminology distinct from the experiences on which this article is based and, it seems highly likely, different from the types of media engagement that most academic criminologists are likely to face. Crucially, the voracious demands of 24/7 news media might expand opportunities for presenting criminological perspectives to the general public but, by their very nature, these opportunities will be highly reactive, relatively spontaneous, and on terms over which experts have little influence or control. The precise ways in which these challenges applied in the case of Raoul Moat have been identified in the earlier sections of this article.
One implication of the opportunistic nature of newsmaking criminology in a rolling-news environment is that the scope for the planned transfer of research evidence into public debate inevitably is reduced by the short-term demand for instantaneous commentary. As was indicated above, media producers covering the Moat case necessarily wanted academic input at short notice in ways that were logistically difficult to fulfil. Additionally, rapid and unpredictable demand also precluded planning of content or preparation of research evidence relevant to the story. Barak (2007) noted that his radio discussions of the OJ Simpson trial were sometimes grounded in his preparation and collation of research material and scholarly work that he could draw upon in his on-air contributions. While such sources can inform relatively spontaneous media interviews, this is inevitably much more challenging in the context of live rolling-news coverage of crime incidents, especially when contributions are relatively brief. However, other conventions of the format ameliorate these limitations to some extent. First the pre-broadcast interviews with production staff and journalists provided an opportunity to rehearse contributions in ways that are largely intended to give media an indication of the nature of what might be provided, but also allow commentators to test and reconfigure ideas. Second, the rolling nature of the news coverage also meant that content was revisited as questions and discussion themes reappeared two or three times in each hour of live broadcast. Third, delivering live broadcasts means that there is relatively little direct editorial control over the commentary provided, although producers retain the power not to seek further input if the style or content is considered inappropriate to the media framing of events.
This latter possibility points to other factors, beyond media formats and logistics, which are also challenging in terms of delivering a criminological perspective to a wider public audience. The ideological implications of media framing of the Moat case, and criminal offending more generally, in terms of the individual biography or pathology of offenders have been identified in the above discussion of the coverage of this event. Framing in this way meant that expert commentary was sought that fitted the established media paradigm for reporting of the events. Primary definition relating to the psychological profile of Raoul Moat was achieved through media production that employed visual and linguistic imagery that marginalized other perspectives. The experience of the author was that presenters and producers persisted in a focus on criminal psychology despite repeated reminders that this was a topic on which I could offer no professional insight. It might be that the assumption that an academic criminologist is necessarily a criminal profiler or psychologist might itself reflect fictional representations of the role and work of the expert scientist. Huey (2010) found that the ‘CSI-effect’ might cause ‘role strain’ for a minority of police investigators, and it might also be that a similar dislocation occurs in relation to the disjuncture between fictional representation and the actuality of criminological work.
While debates about ‘newsmaking criminology’ correctly identify the importance of communication style and the use of appropriate language to convey research evidence to wider publics, the problem of responding to primary definitions of events in ways that challenge dominant interpretive frameworks also raises questions about the relative status of different forms of scientific evidence. Sherman (2009) has argued that the impact of criminology would be enhanced by a more robust evidential basis for policy development; the Moat case suggests that criminological engagement with the media also has to contest which disciplinary forms of evidence might help to explain offending behaviour. A priority for ‘public criminology’ might be to more effectively establish the nature of the discipline in its sociological form (Chancer and McLaughlin, 2007; Loader and Sparks, 2010a, 2010b).
Given these technical challenges and the difficulties of responding to a dominant narrative framework established by the media, it might be argued that contributions to rolling-news media offer little prospect of developing a public criminology that shifts the terms of debate in relation to specific criminal episodes. One difficulty in approaching these possibilities relates to the methodological problem of assessing audience impact. While studies such as Feilzer (2007) and Barak (2007) include some reflection on the extent to which academic media input affects audiences, the inherent spontaneity of the contributions discussed here preclude such an assessment. It might be that the terms on which academics are invited to contribute to rolling TV and radio coverage are so heavily weighted toward demands of the media industry that little can be hoped for from any individual contribution. Alternatively, while particular attempts at public criminology of this kind might be slight in terms of their impact, it might be that the collective effect of criminological perspectives is of significance. In addition, the risk of criminologists retreating from such engagement might mean that other ‘props’ will be used that make no commitment to reflecting research evidence and an informed perspective.
A more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of rolling-news production and insight into the narrative and representational frameworks applied to crime events has been developed in the analysis presented above. In addition to criminologists developing communication skills and courting relationships with media producers, it is important for newsmaking criminologists to develop a perspective on the framing of news stories relating to crime. It is hoped that this article forms a starting point for further discussion and analysis in response to Barak’s (2007: 194) observation that: success, when it comes, usually does so because the newsmaking criminologist has a thorough appreciation of the particular format, frame and genre of specific media … the time has come to develop more culturally and materially nuanced accounts of the representations of law and order, or of crime and justice, if criminologists are to have an effect.
Conclusion
A number of themes for further research and debate can be tentatively outlined from this discussion. Criminological analysis of the media coverage of crime has tended to focus on the routines of journalism relating to the everyday construction and representation of crime in general terms. There remains relatively little research or analysis of particular criminal incidents. More research into the reporting of extreme events or signal crimes is needed, especially against a context of a much expanded, diverse and dynamic mediascape that is heavily reliant on visual images and engages citizens as producers as well as consumers of news. Methodologically this remains a problematic research agenda, not least because of the inherent unpredictability of such events, which means that researchers need to adopt opportunistic and contingent approaches to data gathering and observation.
In conceptual terms, reflection on the role of the media in the Moat case might also suggest that the blurred boundaries between fictional and factual representation of crime need to be considered not only in terms of the development of realism in popular cultural genres but also the extent to which dramatic narratives and content loop back into news reporting. Parker (2010) reminds us that press reporting of outlaws going back to the time of Robin Hood has often tended to blend fictional and factual narratives but the substantive content and processes that sustain this representation has been under-researched in the context of twenty-first-century media. The impact of emerging news formats on audiences and the broader debate about ‘media contagion’ might also usefully be revisited. Finally, as has been suggested, reflexive consideration on the public role of academic commentary becomes increasingly necessary in an era when media demands provide wider possibilities for the communication of criminological perspectives as well as greater risks for misrepresentation, simplification or marginalization of perspectives that seek to challenge dominant narratives of crime and responses to it. If one purpose of public criminology is to ‘cool down’ over-heated crime debates it might prove necessary to engage more directly and on a more informed basis with the very media outlets that helped to raise the temperature in the first instance.
Footnotes
1.
PC David Rathband committed suicide in March 2012 as a result of his injuries and their impact on his professional and private life.
2.
As in other countries, police deployment of Tasers as a less-than-lethal weapon has proved controversial in a number of respects. Taser guns fire two darts that create an electrical circuit from the gun, allowing for the discharge of an electric shock that temporarily prevents normal muscle function.
3
On 2 June 2010, a 52-year-old taxi driver, Derrick Bird, drove around the town of Whitehaven in Cumbria and the surrounding area, shooting members of the public; many of whom were strangers to him. Early in the afternoon, Bird shot and killed himself. The subsequent inquest was told that Bird had developed an irrational fear that his brother and his solicitor (both of whom he had fatally shot) were conspiring against him and that he faced jail for non-payment of taxes.