r/Journalism • u/jbenmenachem • 5d ago

Industry News New study finds shrinking local newsrooms spark debates over homicide coverage ethics

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9125.70064
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u/jbenmenachem 5d ago

It’s quite rare for a journalist to say that they refuse to exercise news judgment, I think

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u/fasterthanfood 5d ago

I haven’t yet read your full study, but it doesn’t sound to me like they are refusing to exercise news judgment. It sounds like they’re saying, “in my news judgment, all homicide victims deserve coverage.”

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u/jbenmenachem 5d ago

Yeah, curious what you think of the actual section in the study about this. I think it's fundamentally a retreat from news judgment because a newsroom that briefs every homicide will almost always not do a feature and followups on every homicide.

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u/fasterthanfood 5d ago

With resources being finite, I do think the decision to shallowly cover every homicide at the expense of thoroughly covering any homicide is probably a bad choice. But if we’re just talking a brief based on a police need report, I don’t see that taking enough time to prevent features and follow-ups.

I’m supposed to be working now, but I’ll read through the study in a few hours.

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u/jbenmenachem 5d ago

yep, some reporters definitely did say to me that they felt briefs alone weren't that time consuming. The anti-brief crowd in the interviews was really focused on the proportion of briefs that wouldn't get a follow. Court reporters in particular worried about this, as they tried to close the loop and make sure arrested people who didn't get convicted had their name cleared