Ethics, Media, and Criminal Justice

Ethics, Media, and Criminal Justice

Ashford University

CRJ 524: Ethics in Criminal Justice

Ethics, Media, and Criminal Justice

The media reporting on the criminal justice system have a big impact on what they are reporting on the news to society. Banks (2016) “numerous studies have shown that most people gain their knowledge of events from the media, and therefore, the selection and shaping of news by the media is a critical element in forming and modeling public opinion on most topics, including criminal justice (Banks, 2016). How the media reporting of violence and crime have a demand on public opinion and the criminal justice policies. The media news has been known for what is morally or socially acceptable conduct and what is classify as news. The paper will discussethics policy for handling and reporting of criminal justice issues and news, political bias in reporting and foundation of accurately way to report news about the criminal justice system.

Ethics policy for the media in handling the reporting of criminal justice issues and news have been a problem for centuries, the U.S. Constitution, “Freedom of Press,” protect the media under the media constitutional rights but the ethical issues of the media is non-bias reporting. Non-bias reporting of information of the crime to the media through news, television, journalists have variety of ways to manifest media bias, such as balance, and errors that favor one side. They can be bias with voices, facial expressions, and gestures. For example, report the factual information not the opinion based information. For example, reporting gun violence as laws will only give one side of the story not the entire story on how tougher gun laws can decreased gun violence. Media non-bias ethics policy can help with handling criminal justice issues and news when reporting crimes.

The significance of political bias in reporting are the representative governance, voter views, and political represent factors that influence policy outcomes. The decisions of voters and policy can be bias perspectives of the media. The media facts of information impacts media bias because of dependent of information to the audience. According to DellaVigna and Kaplan (2008), “in a representative system of government, policy outcomes are affected by the political preferences and the beliefs of the voters” (DellaVigna & Kaplan, 2008). Preferences and beliefs plays a key role in shaping the media by collecting, summarizing and framing the information with voting decisions. The political bias in reporting the voting of Democratic and Republican is one of the issues that American viewers had issues with the media information that was broadcast during the election. Public opinion has been an effect of the news media bias.

Foundation for the accurate and ethical reporting news about the criminal justice system is breaking news, feature stories, and high impact stories. Breaking news media reporting of accurate information of crime that just occurred and what happened such as trials, verdicts, execution, and jail or prison escape. Media reporting theses news with the truthful information received from the criminal justice system. Feature stories such as anniversary of bombing, school shooting, disappearances and unsolved cases. These stories will help the ethical reporting of the criminal justice system because of the information received from interviews. High-impact stories that media will covered as series such as why a person went to prison and the crime that was committed with interviews, witness, and photography. The criminal justice ethical reporting will go into detail stories of the effects of crime and victimization that will examine economic, political, social, and cultural thoughts and feelings of the crime that was committed.

The conclusion of ethics, media, and criminal justice reporting when reporting information to the media through the news. The reporting of violence and crime through the media can be an issue in a public opinion and the criminal justice system. Handling the reporting of the criminal justice issues is important because the media have to not be bias with the information that they delivered to the public. Political bias has been an issue when reporting the information because the audience goes by the information that are received from the media. Accurate and ethical reporting of the news of the criminal justice system is how the media bring the information to the public.

Banks, C. (2016). Criminal justice ethics: Theory and Practice (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Della Vigna, S., & Kaplan, E. (2008). The political impact of media bias. Information and Public Choice, 79