The Media Versus the Criminal Justice System Essay

Introduction

The media and news generally business that needs to put forward products and services that their clients would like to consume. The media that looks for stories that can sell, and that will keep their audiences excited and willing to give the audience. Negative news generally seems to attract more viewers. Negative news also appears to report the extraordinary things that are happening in society, which is what their audiences want to hear and not the ordinary things that are happening in the community. When it comes to the criminal justice system, the media has mostly covered it in a negative light. It does not necessarily mean that the entire criminal justice system is terrible. It merely means that the negative side of the criminal justice system gets more Media exposure than the positive side.

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The portrayal of the criminal justice system by the media makes it seem ineffective since the media only focuses on failures and inefficiencies in the system. It raises calls for improvements to be made in the criminal justice system. The perception that the media gives the public makes them believe that there are few police officers, and therefore, there is a need to increase the number of police officers. An impression may also be created that there are a few prisons when the media shows only images of crowded prison cells with poor humanitarian conditions. They lead to calls for more prisons to be constructed to accommodate a large number of prisoners in the country.

Discussion

The media is a powerful channel of communication. In most countries, the press is one of the most trusted institutions. An independent Media is believed to be a public watchdog that performs checks and balances and the different arms of the government. The public, therefore, seems to trust separate media houses, and as such, anything that they report carries much weight in the eyes of the people (Parker, 2013). It is why the portrayal of the criminal justice system by the media is essential. When the media portrays it in a negative light, it makes the public to believe that everything is wrong with the criminal justice system in America.

Based on media reports, the criminal justice system in America has been accused of several faults and weaknesses. The portrayal of the criminal justice system by the media is not only based on the news but also on films and TV series that are shown in the press (Parker, 2013). The films and the TV series imitate effective or ineffective criminal justice systems. Discussions and analyses carried out in the media involving criminal justice experts and retired prosecutors influence the public perception and reaction about the state of the criminal justice system.

Position

It is agreeable that the media sets the agenda for some of the public discussions that lead to policy changes in the government or government institutions. Brown (2018) posit that the criminal justice system does not get much positive coverage from the media. Therefore, there is more support for more police officers to be employed, more prisons to be constructed to decongest the existing ones, and for the criminal justice system to get an overhaul (Brown, 2018). Each election year, media houses conduct presidential debates, and the state of the criminal justice system is usually one of the main areas of discussion. It will be necessary for the media to be objective in their reporting about the criminal justice system that how they portrayed to the public for meaningful changes to be realized.

News and Entertainment

The media seems to lose its objectivity when it comes to news reporting. In the recent past, there has been a lot of polarization in the media that has made some Media houses to be regarded to be either left or right-leaning. This has affected the quality of news programs that are on TV and other media channels. Political discussions in the media are less informative because the analysts that are recruited by the media houses base them on biased political opinions. Integrating crime stories in hybrid infotainment programs diminishes the significance of such stories. They make crime stories to be regarded to have the same weight as some of the entertainment stories presented in the media.

Discussion

The main goal of the media should be to inform its audiences about events happening around the country and the world. However, the media landscape has been can be changed with the cropping now of social media platforms through which the public can have access to news events that are happening around the world. The woman platforms for reporting news are even more efficient and fast in delivering news to the public than the traditional media houses (Saunders, 2018). Changes in demographics have also affected the way media houses operating. There is a larger younger population that constitute the audience for Media houses.

Besides news, the younger population is also looking for entertainment. Media houses have, therefore, been compelled to integrate entertainment in the news reporting. They have segments for news and segments for television. Sometimes when there is a piece of breaking news in the middle of an entertainment program, the media houses take a break from the entertainment to report on the breaking news. This confuses and blurs the line between news and entertainment. Some news programs are also packaged as entertainment programs. Some of the discussions that take place on some news topics are packaged as entertainment segments rather than news segments (Simmens, 2011). Some of the talks are not objective, and they do not reflect the professionalism that the media is expected to have.

Position

The news media is like hovering infotainment instead of the real names that people expect from them. When watching cable news these days, much of what the audience gets tends to be infotainment. According to Dickason (2011), the networks are doing everything in their power to keep their audiences glued to their screens. As a result, legitimate news to stories is pushed to the side, and some stories that give more entertainment rather than information are what is shown and discussed in the mainstream news media. For instance, cable news outlets spend more time talking about Stormy Daniels' story than in covering some critical news stories.

Bias in the mainstream media is also affecting the quality of information that audiences get from the media. The media has blurred the line between facts and fiction. Some Media houses present what they refer to as "alternative facts." Two media houses reporting on the same news story can have very different perspectives from the story and different sets of facts in the same story. The objectivity in media has been lost, and as such, media houses that remain independent and that can be reliable for factual reporting of news have significantly diminished.

References

Brown, B. (2018, November 6). Is the Media Altering Our Perceptions of Crime? Retrieved from https://intpolicydigest.org/2015/03/11/is-the-media-altering-our-perceptions-of-crime/.

Dickason, C. (2011, April 12). The blurring line between entertainment and news concerning. Retrieved from http://dailytrojan.com/2011/04/11/blurring-line-between-entertainment-and-news-concerning/.

Parker, S. (2013, January 1). The Portrayal of the American Legal System in Prime Time Television Crime Dramas. Retrieved from http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/794/the-portrayal-of-the-american-legal-system-in-prime-time-television-crime-dramas.

Saunders, C. (2018, April 12). Mainstream media blurs the line between news and entertainment. Retrieved from https://ktrh.iheart.com/content/2018-04-12-mainstream-media-blurs-the-line-between-news-and-entertainment/.

Simmens, L. (2011, May 25). When the Line Between News and Entertainment Blurs. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/when-the-line-betw