The free press-fair trial issue and journalistic professionalism: Practices in news coverage of crime and criminal proceedings, 1891-1980. (Volumes I and II)

Complaints that press coverage of criminal proceedings can jeopardize the fair trial rights of defendants are, to some extent, complaints that journalists cannot behave in a professional manner. Although some journalists have seen professionalization as a way of improving their status and pay, others argue that professionalism actually diminishes the autonomy of the journalist and encourages her or him to focus on narrow issues of technique and efficiency and to ignore values and goals. This dissertation tries to determine how reporters' attitudes toward their occupation changed over a ninety-year period and whether they became more professional and how those changes may have affected the reporting of crime news. Because crime news is important and had a wide audience, one would expect changes in journalistic attitudes to be reflected in the way crime is reported. One may also expect that the long-running controversy over "trial by newspaper" has influenced reporters' practices. Furthermore, if the critics of professionalism are correct, then there should be greater emphasis on official sources and matters of police and court procedure as the occupation professionalizes. Journalists' autobiographies and criticisms of journalism indicate that journalists did adopt some of the attitudes and behaviors associated with professionalism. However, a content analysis of crime stories shows that crime reporting practices varied as much with by the size of the paper as with the passage of time. Moreover, while some of the results of the content analysis were consistent with the view that professionalization produces a narrowing of focus on instrumental questions, other results showed a continuing concern in news stories with social values and goals.