Let’s be honest: Crime coverage is terrible.
It’s racist, classist, fear-based clickbait masking as journalism. It creates lasting harm for the communities that newsrooms are supposed to serve. And because it so rarely meets the public’s needs, it’s almost never newsworthy, despite what Grizzled Gary in his coffee-stained shirt says from his perch at the copy desk.
This should be the year where we finally abolish the crime beat. Study after study shows how the media’s overemphasis on crime makes people feel less safe than they really are and negatively shapes public policy around the criminal–legal system. And study after study shows that it’s racist and inhumane.
While crime coverage fails to serve the public, it does serve three powerful constituencies: white supremacy, law enforcement, and newsrooms — specifically a newsroom’s bottom line.
Let’s start with the police.
The media tend to prioritize their relationships with law enforcement over their connections with communities impacted by state violence, overpolicing, and generations of trauma and governmental neglect. That’s because police give journalists information quickly and cultivate relationships with reporters through ride-alongs and press conferences. Police do all of this to control the narrative, set the news agenda, and stoke public fear so that law-enforcement budgets keep going up.
And for decades, police have harmed Black and brown communities by manipulating the media with half-truths or outright lies.
Take this recent example: After a Philadelphia cop killed Walter Wallace Jr., police stopped a car driving through the resulting demonstrations. The driver, Rickia Young, was on her way to pick up her nephew and made a wrong turn. Police pulled Young from her seat, beat her, and ripped her two-year-old child from the car. The National Fraternal Order of Police later shared images online of a police officer clutching the 2-year-old, claiming that the child was wandering the streets during the “violent riots” and police were “protecting” the child.
What’s worse is that journalists still defer to police, even though they know that some cops are liars. TV news in particular routinely runs crime stories that feature law enforcement as the sole source of information. This approach runs counter to everything you learn in Journalism 101 — independently verify your facts, talk to multiple sources, and don’t take the word of powerful people at face value.
And yet the “crime beat” still exists. You can blame the ingrained “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality. You can blame commercial media’s grotesque business model, where speed is valued over context and there’s a desperate need to attract as many eyeballs as possible to make a buck. For every good police-accountability story, or story covering the root causes and generational pain of violence and harm, there are dozens more crime stories that inflict trauma and make a spectacle of violence, mental illness, poverty, substance abuse, and generational divestment.
We’ve seen some positive changes over the past few years. Many newsrooms no longer use mugshots; some are creating appeal processes for the public to have stories removed from news sites; others are creating advisory boards. Calls to reexamine the relationship between police and media have increased since the summer’s racial-justice uprisings and the hundreds of press freedom violations at the hands of law enforcement. But journalists must recognize that what they’ve recently experienced with police violence is what Black and brown communities experience on a daily basis.
These steps, while important, are the low-hanging fruit. The whole process of how the criminal–legal system is covered needs to be reexamined — from who sets the news agenda, to who determines what’s newsworthy, to whose voices are centered in coverage and which relationships are prioritized. We need beats that focus on communities impacted by systemic marginalization and keep people safe and healthy. And we need beats that help people navigate the criminal-legal system, access important social services, and better understand their rights.
Here in Philadelphia, Free Press, the Media, Inequality and Change Center, Movement Alliance Project, and many other community groups have launched the Shift the Narrative Project. We’re working with residents and journalists to build power within communities to transform whose stories are told in local media.
The sooner journalists acknowledge that the crime beat needs to go, the sooner we can acknowledge and repair past harms, reimagine how newsrooms approach their coverage of the criminal-legal and carceral systems, and move in solidarity with communities whose perspectives and experiences have been excluded from local news.
Tauhid Chappell is Free Press’s News Voices: Philadelphia program manager. Mike Rispoli is the director of News Voices.
Let’s be honest: Crime coverage is terrible.
It’s racist, classist, fear-based clickbait masking as journalism. It creates lasting harm for the communities that newsrooms are supposed to serve. And because it so rarely meets the public’s needs, it’s almost never newsworthy, despite what Grizzled Gary in his coffee-stained shirt says from his perch at the copy desk.
This should be the year where we finally abolish the crime beat. Study after study shows how the media’s overemphasis on crime makes people feel less safe than they really are and negatively shapes public policy around the criminal–legal system. And study after study shows that it’s racist and inhumane.
While crime coverage fails to serve the public, it does serve three powerful constituencies: white supremacy, law enforcement, and newsrooms — specifically a newsroom’s bottom line.
Let’s start with the police.
The media tend to prioritize their relationships with law enforcement over their connections with communities impacted by state violence, overpolicing, and generations of trauma and governmental neglect. That’s because police give journalists information quickly and cultivate relationships with reporters through ride-alongs and press conferences. Police do all of this to control the narrative, set the news agenda, and stoke public fear so that law-enforcement budgets keep going up.
And for decades, police have harmed Black and brown communities by manipulating the media with half-truths or outright lies.
Take this recent example: After a Philadelphia cop killed Walter Wallace Jr., police stopped a car driving through the resulting demonstrations. The driver, Rickia Young, was on her way to pick up her nephew and made a wrong turn. Police pulled Young from her seat, beat her, and ripped her two-year-old child from the car. The National Fraternal Order of Police later shared images online of a police officer clutching the 2-year-old, claiming that the child was wandering the streets during the “violent riots” and police were “protecting” the child.
What’s worse is that journalists still defer to police, even though they know that some cops are liars. TV news in particular routinely runs crime stories that feature law enforcement as the sole source of information. This approach runs counter to everything you learn in Journalism 101 — independently verify your facts, talk to multiple sources, and don’t take the word of powerful people at face value.
And yet the “crime beat” still exists. You can blame the ingrained “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality. You can blame commercial media’s grotesque business model, where speed is valued over context and there’s a desperate need to attract as many eyeballs as possible to make a buck. For every good police-accountability story, or story covering the root causes and generational pain of violence and harm, there are dozens more crime stories that inflict trauma and make a spectacle of violence, mental illness, poverty, substance abuse, and generational divestment.
We’ve seen some positive changes over the past few years. Many newsrooms no longer use mugshots; some are creating appeal processes for the public to have stories removed from news sites; others are creating advisory boards. Calls to reexamine the relationship between police and media have increased since the summer’s racial-justice uprisings and the hundreds of press freedom violations at the hands of law enforcement. But journalists must recognize that what they’ve recently experienced with police violence is what Black and brown communities experience on a daily basis.
These steps, while important, are the low-hanging fruit. The whole process of how the criminal–legal system is covered needs to be reexamined — from who sets the news agenda, to who determines what’s newsworthy, to whose voices are centered in coverage and which relationships are prioritized. We need beats that focus on communities impacted by systemic marginalization and keep people safe and healthy. And we need beats that help people navigate the criminal-legal system, access important social services, and better understand their rights.
Here in Philadelphia, Free Press, the Media, Inequality and Change Center, Movement Alliance Project, and many other community groups have launched the Shift the Narrative Project. We’re working with residents and journalists to build power within communities to transform whose stories are told in local media.
The sooner journalists acknowledge that the crime beat needs to go, the sooner we can acknowledge and repair past harms, reimagine how newsrooms approach their coverage of the criminal-legal and carceral systems, and move in solidarity with communities whose perspectives and experiences have been excluded from local news.
Tauhid Chappell is Free Press’s News Voices: Philadelphia program manager. Mike Rispoli is the director of News Voices.
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)