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II- Crime

journalism (Osmania University)

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Crime-

1. One of the major problems of reporting crime is that the event itself is usually over
before the journalist gets there.
2. When reporting on a parliamentary sitting or the launch of a space rocket, the
journalist has plenty of time to prepare, observe what happens and write the story in a
logical sequence, from beginning to end.
3. By the time the reporter learns of a robbery, the robbers will probably have fled, the
victims will be in hospital, answering police questions or in a mortuary, while the
police themselves will already have started their investigation.
4. In trying to bring some order out of this chaos, you must revert to the basics of
journalism.

Personal qualities

1. You need a lively mind so you can think of ways around any problems you may come
across in reporting.
2. You need to be sympathetic to draw answers out of people who may be upset about
the crime.
3. You should also be suspicious of what you are told.
4. The police and witnesses may not intend to mislead you, but victims and witnesses
are often shocked and unclear about what happened, while the police are more
interested in catching criminals than in answering journalists' questions.
5. The criminals themselves will usually lie.

Sources of information

1. To limit the risk of inaccuracy, try to get information from as many sources as
possible.

2. If it is a small story about the theft of a car, you might get enough information from the
police report.

3. With more important or complicated stories, use a variety of sources.

4. You may want to start with the police report to establish that a crime really happened,
then go on to question the officer dealing with the specific case.

5. Try to interview any victims for a first-hand account of what happened or what was
stolen.

6. If the victim is not available, try relatives or friends.

7. Interview any witnesses but be aware that they will not usually be trained to observe
things as accurately as police or journalists.

8. Visit the scene of the crime so that you can add important details to your story or get
pictures for publication or broadcast.

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9. Visiting the scene will also help you to visualise the event when it is described to you.

10. With big or unusual crimes, you will need to provide some background to help your
readers or listeners to understand what happened or what the consequences of a crime
might be.

11. Once you have gathered all the information, you should sort through it carefully,
double checking any doubtful or conflicting information where necessary.

12. Identify those facts which are reliable and those which are not.

13. Although police reports are usually quite accurate, they are seldom entirely reliable, so
you may have to cross-check some of what they say. It is a useful practice.

Reporting techniques

In practical terms, there are many things you can do to make your job as a crime reporter
easier and more interesting. The most important of these is to establish good and reliable
contacts.

Making and keeping contacts

1. It is your task to establish good contacts - people who will tell you about events as
soon as they happen.

2. Although your most reliable contacts may be on-duty police officers do not limit
yourself to these.

3. Get to know other sources within the police force.

4. This may be officially discouraged by the police commissione, but good confidential
sources can often give you an off-the-record tip of something which you can then
check through official channels.

5. Contacts outside the police force can be just as valuable.

6. The best are people whose work or social life bring them into regular contact with
crimes or criminals.

7. Ambulance drivers, for example, are called to crimes where people are hurt.

8. Individual ambulance officers are useful sources, but the radio controller of the
service is in the best position to know everything that is going on.

9. Nurses see victims of violence brought into their hospital and nurses on intensive care
units see the worst cases.

10. Never waste an opportunity to encourage contacts.

11. Regular visits or telephone calls remind them that you are still interested.

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12. A few minutes spent talking to a pathologist at the scene of a murder could establish
him as a future source of information about deaths and post-mortems.

13. You must work hard on keeping contacts.

14. Make sure that they have telephone numbers where they can find you.

15. If you leave the office, let your colleagues know how they can get in touch with you
in an emergency if any of your good contacts calls with an urgent story.

16. If the contact is happy to be seen giving you information, you could send them
occasional greetings cards on birthdays or festive occasions.

17. If the contact wants their relationship with you to be kept secret, respect their wishes
and do not let anyone know who your informant is.

Police contacts

1. You should get to know your local police well. Make sure that you know their names
and their ranks.

2. Find out what their jobs and duties are within the force so that you can go directly to
the right person when you need information.

3. Take an interest in what they tell you, even if there is no news story in the information
at that time.

4. Store it away in a notebook for future reference.

5. Do not appear bored or critical if they give you information which is not newsworthy
- you will only discourage them for the future.

6. Do not expect even the best of police contacts to go searching for you with story
ideas.

7. Make regular visits or telephone calls at agreed times.

8. The good crime reporter always spends the first part of any day ringing round or
visiting contacts, just to ask if anything is happening.

9. It is good practice, on a day when there is not much happening, to use your time
talking to your contacts, checking for news or simply having a chat if they are not
busy.

10. Become known around the police station or police post, so that your presence is
eventually taken for granted and officers will talk freely in front of you.

11. However, you must remember that you are their guest.

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12. Leave the room if you are asked and do not go into places where you have been
specifically banned.

13. You must also remember that, however much time you spend with the police, you are
not a police officer.

14. Your job is quite different from theirs.

15. Your first loyalty is to your readers or listeners.

16. Sometimes this will put you in conflict with the police.

17. If you are too close and bound to them by favours, you cannot do your job as a
journalist properly.

Police press cards

1. In some countries, the police issue press cards to certain journalists.

2. These are often small plastic-covered cards with the journalist's photograph to identify
them as a journalist in the eyes of the police.

3. Police press cards may give journalists special access to places, such as the scene of a
crime.

4. Some reporters enjoy the status that such a card gives them, without realising the
danger.

5. If journalists accept police press cards as the official recognition, the police are in a
position of power to withhold cards from journalists who write things they do not like.

6. This is very dangerous in democratic societies and should be avoided whenever

possible.

7. The alternative - a press card issued by a professional journalism body - is usually

preferable, although any system of licensing journalists can restrict your freedom to
do your job.

Observation and monitoring

1. All journalists should develop their powers of observation.

2. On the crime round, you must always be aware of what is happening and what is not,
what is said and what is not said.

3. In some countries, crime reporters are legally permitted to monitor the police radio
using special scanners which search the different wave bands for the emergency
services frequencies.

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4. You may not always be able to understand what is said (in some cases you can only
pick up one side of two-way radio conversations), but you will be alerted if any major
events happen.

5. Be warned, however, that monitoring police radio frequencies is banned by law in

some countries.

6. If such monitoring is banned, you must officially respect that ban.

7. If you listen in illegally then turn up at the scene of a crime, you could be in trouble
unless you have a good answer when the police ask who told you of the incident.

8. Check what the law of your country says about monitoring two-way radio messages.

What information do you need?

The crime

1. You will need to know the exact nature of the crime committed and exactly where and
when the crime was committed, even the time of day or night.

2. You should try to find out how it was committed but take advice on how much you
should say in your story.

3. If the thieves have used a new and clever way of breaking into a building, you may
give other criminals an idea by describing it exactly.

4. On the other hand, if you tell your readers or listeners how crimes are committed,
they may be better prepared to protect themselves.

5. The method the criminals used is often the most newsworthy aspect of the crime, even
when it was not successful.

6. you will write a more interesting story if you can visualise what happened while it is
being described to you.

7. You should, where possible, ask the value of anything stolen, both individual items
and a total sum.

8. Always ask whether a weapon was used, particularly in violent crimes.

9. The police may be happy to give you a full description of any get-away vehicle in
their bid to trace it.

Victims and suspects

1. Get as many details as possible about any victims.

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2. This should include their names, ages and addresses (although not always for
publication), possibly their occupation and certainly details of any injuries they
suffered.

3. Get details of any witnesses, so that you can talk to them.

4. The police may have a suspect or list of suspects.

5. Although you may not be able to use the actual names, you might be able to describe
them.

Unusual circumstances

There may be some special circumstances which make the crime more newsworthy. For
example, your intro may be that this is the fifth time that a certain office has been broken into
in a month or that the landlord is a cabinet minister.

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