News, Crime and Culture

Crime is always newsworthy. But is crime reporting as value-free and objective as we would like to think? Is crime reporting concerned exclusively with issues of good and evil, justice and the law? Or is it part of a broader and much more specific ideology, underpinned by an essentially conservative agenda?The link between news reports of crime or disorder and public perception becomes increasingly clear, as public reaction to the murder of Sarah Payne and the fuel crisis has shown. News, Cri…