Reporting Crime

Is crime reporting leading to more crime? Is the press too explicit and sensational in its reporting of crime?

(Editor's Note: Earlier this year, Scarborough and Districts Progress Association president John Foley wrote to the Australian Press Council to highlight concerns about crime reporting. The Council considered the nature of his general complaint and decided that the best way of handling the matter was to offer him space in the News to express his views.

The Council subsequently sought the views of The West Australian, the daily newspaper in Mr Foley's bailiwick. The West Australian's Issues Editor Zoltan Kovacs penned a commentary printed on the next page.)

John Foley's letter:

The rate at which crime in Western Australia is increasing, seemingly unabated in spite of Government initiatives to correct the trend, is of deep concern to all decent citizens. Were it not for the press reporting on crimes in newspapers and on radio and television the community at large would of course have no idea of the magnitude of home invasions, assaults, aggravated burglaries and so on which are becoming every day events.

Constraints should not be placed on media coverage of such crimes if this would result in pertinent details being withheld eg. out of political correctness. People are entitled to know their enemy and full descriptions of assailants should be given so that one can be on one's guard. Always media reports should be responsible: conversely, always, they should not be irresponsible.

As a community minded organisation our Association has made a number of submissions to Government on crime, responding to the concerns of the community it represents. At our last general meeting real concerns were expressed about media reporting of crimes which are irresponsible and could be said to be inflaming a worsening situation. Details of attacks on the elderly, including explicit pictures, which commenced some time back have alerted hoodlums in our society to the vulnerability of such defenceless people who are seen as easy game. While the elderly will concede that media reports have put them on guard to expect attacks, they are very much aware that constant graphic news coverage has lifted crimes against them to endemic proportions.

Reports in The West Australian in September 1999 cover a home invasion in which a young woman was forced to surrender money under threat of being sprayed with petrol and set alight. Such horror filled accounts, abhorrent as they may be to most people, are read by all of us as we live in an environment (print/TV/videos) saturated with violence. They do nothing for the lonely and depressed who can expect similar attack in their homes as "copy-cat" criminals learn of a new and most effective way of striking fear in people and knowing that under threat of being horribly burnt and disfigured their victims will obey every command they make of them.

Our Association requests that you give urgent consideration to what we regard as irresponsible reporting of crimes and that you initiate guidelines to be observed by the media which would ensure that community interests are served and that innocent people are not placed at further risk. We suggest that the crime detail is not necessary in telling a story.

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Zoltan Kovacs responds

The American playwright Arthur Miller once said a good newspaper was a nation talking to itself. His definition implies a close relationship between a good newspaper and its community of readers.

Any newspaper flourishes or flounders on its ability (or otherwise) to reflect accurately community concerns, standards and aspirations. No newspaper editor who wants to provide a genuine and successful service would set out deliberately to offend readers. People in newspapers must make fine judgments repeatedly about what is and is not acceptable to readers - and they must be guided by an intimate understanding of community values.

As Mr Foley observes, crime is an issue of deep concern in WA - not only its rate but also the gratuitous viciousness with which it often is perpetrated.

An Australian Bureau of Statistics report said late last year that a survey had found that West Australians were more worried about crime than other Australians.

Obligations

The West Australian would be failing its obligations to readers if it did not report crimes and reflect community anxieties about them. At one level, such reports send unequivocal messages to people to take measures to protect themselves and their properties.

At another, they serve as pointers to the direction in which society is heading and generate essential debate on the need for social change for the benefit of the community. At a third level, they put pressure on governments - directly and through worried constituents - to find more effective means of securing public safety.

That is how a democracy works. Only a public that is well informed by the news media is equipped to demand better government from its political representatives.

Image of assault

The West Australian published this month a picture of a man with a disability being beaten up for no apparent reason in a railway carriage at Perth station. The picture was taken from a security video, which was released by the police.

It and the accompanying report brought home to readers some nasty social realities. First, the attack was in daylight in front of witnesses. This suggested that the assailant was confident that his brazen lawlessness would go unpunished - a criminal comment on safety provisions for train passengers.

Second, the picture showed fellow passengers ignoring the victim's plight. No one went to help him. This told us something about the kind of society we have. It showed a trend that most Perth people could be expected to want to reverse.

Third, it was a graphic illustration of the need for better security at the station and supported the demand of commuters for the Government to provide it. This picture and report presented West Australians with information that they have a right to know.

Decisions about publishing these and other items on crime are never taken lightly. Sometimes they are just as controversial inside the newspaper office as in the wider community.

Certainly, the newspaper would balk at publishing anything that would humiliate or embarrass a victim of crime or offend against community standards of decency. One of the crucial questions an editor must ask before making decisions on such matters is whether the public interest would be served by publication.

In cases of pictures being published of the elderly victims who have been assaulted, this has been done with their consent. Such elderly people have done the public a service by drawing attention to the brutality of the crimes committed against them, which cannot be conveyed as vividly or movingly by a written account alone. Their pictures serve to alert others to potential danger.

Reality

Such pictures depict the reality of crime and its effects, information which should not be denied to a community that demands better protection of the vulnerable.

Had The West Australian not published the account of the woman being threatened with petrol and fire, West Australians would have been unaware of this dangerous style of intimidation. They would not have known that there was a man at large capable of such idiosyncratic brutality. Importantly, our report contained a partial description of the perpetrator to warn people about him and to help the police to identify and arrest him.

No evidence has come to this newspaper that there is any sort of copy-cat element in the crimes that are worrying decent West Australians. It is evident that there is an illegal drugs sub-culture which generates crimes against the vulnerable.

This newspaper rejects the idea that there is any need for the static of censorship when this community talks to itself.

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