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Trial By Media Undermines Credibility of Law

By deciding which news stories to run, and emphasizing certain stories by repeating them over and over again, the media is largely responsible for dictating which issues the public perceives to be important, and worth paying attention to. Therefore, it is worth noting and perhaps even questioning the mainstream media’s apparent fascination with reporting every nuance of crime stories that, although tragic, ultimately have little impact or informational value for the vast majority of people. What is worse is that on numerous occasions, the media actively aims to frame the public’s perception of a suspect’s guilt or innocence, sometimes erroneously, before a trial, simply for the sake of entertainment and ratings.

[clockwise from top left] 1.) Child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey 2.) Since Natalee Holloway’s disappearance in Aruba, media coverage has included facts and speculation. 3.) A child from a polygamous family protesting the negative imagery used to depict her family beliefs. 4.) The FBI’s captured photo of Warren Jeffs, whom the media has depicted as the personification of polygamy. 5.) The media’s prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, Joran Van-der-Sloot. 6.) John Mark Karr confessed to the JonBenét Ramsey murder, but really didn’t do it.

It’s been almost ten years since we first heard of the tragic murder of six-year-old beauty queen, JonBenét Ramsey, brutally assaulted and killed on Christmas day in Boulder Colorado in 1996. Although they have now been cleared of the crime by police, for years after the murder, widespread suspicion fueled by the mainstream media surrounded the little girl’s parents, John and Pat Ramsey, as the most likely suspects. Fox Broadcasting had gone so far as to create a docudrama television movie based on the case called, “Getting Away with Murder: The JonBenét Ramsey Mystery”. Although the movie left open the possibility that an intruder may have committed the crime, as the Ramsey’s had claimed, most reviews of the film claim it strongly suggested that John and Patsy Ramsey, the victim’s parents, were most likely responsible for their daughter’s murder.

Then, after years of hearing nothing more, a surprising apparent breakthrough in the unsolved mystery. 41 year old John Mark Karr, purportedly confesses to killing JonBenét, and with great fanfare and media attention, is flown back to the U.S. from Thailand.

Adding to the poignancy of the story, the mother, Pat Ramsey, had died just two months previously from cancer, and did not live to hear the media vindicate her as being innocent of the crime. Although it was later determined that Karr’s DNA did not match that found at the crime scene, and that Karr had simply been obsessed with the JonBenét case, little was mentioned about how the parents had been wrongfully vilified by the media for so many years.

Another media favorite in the news again is Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teen who disappeared while on a graduation trip to Aruba. Speculation has focused primarily on Dutch suspect, Joran Van-der-Sloot, who was purportedly the last person seen with the girl on a beach, now virtually branded ‘guilty’ by TV.

The non-stop media coverage of this case raises the question of why the media chose her particular ‘missing persons’ case to focus on out of thousands of cases that occur each year across the nation.

The term “pretty white woman syndrome” has been used to describe the phenomenon where news media will hype coverage of a pretty white woman victim, but rarely do the same for minorities, if they cover crimes against them at all. The media, with legal analysts such as Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren, would claim that they’ve kept the Holloway case high profile because people are interested in following this poignant ‘human interest story’. However, that is circular logic since it is the media that dictates the agenda of issues and topics for public consumption and discussion, shaping the public opinion.

[clockwise from top left] 1.) JonBenét’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey. 2.) O.J. Simpson mug-shot 3.) O.J. was acquitted in the criminal murder case of victims Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman, seen here, but was found liable in their deaths in the civil case, now back in the news. 4.) Without a court, CNN’s Nancy Grace ’convicts’ suspects publicly based on limited evidence. 5.) FOX’s legal analyst Greta Van Susteren rose to fame during the O.J. trial.

The public’s perception of polygamy is now tainted by association to “Polygamous leader, Warren Jeffs”, as if all polygamy was about forced marriages with minors, and like a cult.

The media’s attention on Jeffs led Principle Voices, a pro-polygamous group, to organize a demonstration in August of about 300 people, including wives and children from polygamous families who rallied to City Hall of Salt Lake City, UT to protest the consistently negative depictions of polygamy displayed by the media. 17-year-old Jessica told the AP, “We are not brainwashed, mistreated, neglected, malnourished, illiterate, defective or dysfunctional. My brothers and sisters are freethinking, independent people: some who have chosen this lifestyle, while others have branched out to a diversity of religions.”

Of course, both sides can accuse the other of engaging in propaganda. “We have concerns that the children are being exploited to serve the polygamists’ political agenda to legalize or decriminalize polygamy,” said Vicky Prunty, director of Tapestry Against Polygamy. But others insist they have been unfairly portrayed.

“I felt like they were saying what I wanted to say my whole life,” said Carlene Cannon of the kids, herself a member of a polygamous coalition.

As this issue goes to print, the notorious defendant from the media masterpiece ‘Trial of the Century’, O.J. Simpson is back in the news again for not paying the civil judgment against him for the murders. Does the general public really care?

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