Accentuate the positive

People increasingly rely on the information they get from media sources about hate and violent crime. The issue, asks Stephen Brooks, is has the media’s continual and intense sensationalising contributed to an increased fear of hate crime?

Following the positive outcomes of recent statements and conferences about hate crime we now need to look at the way the media portray such crimes and how their portrayals possibly add to citizens’ fears.

An increase of people coming forward to report hate crime should be seen as a good news story, but the headlines don’t reflect this. A South of England newspaper reported a police inspector saying: “The figures…are a positive indication of the huge amount of work the force has been undertaking to encourage our communities to come forward…” but the headline read: “Hate crime statistics make grim reading”, entirely missing the point!

News media, movies and television shows can inflame the fear of crime in people by depicting real incidents of such crimes in graphic detail. A headline from a north of England journal in October 2008 read: “Gangs of Asian youths terrorise pensioners and try to pick a fight with a man in a wheelchair.” Neil Crowther of the EHRC said of this piece: “What I think is interesting is the complex nature of what is going on there – intergenerational relations, anti-social behaviour, race relations, hostility towards a disabled person, people exploiting the vulnerable situation of the residents etc.”

I am not for one moment suggesting that good news instead of bad is used in the context of hate crime, but I do feel that a positive headline can actually increase the confidence of minority groups in reporting hate crime. An example of how this works was seen in a December story in a Thames valley evening paper which had the headline: “Couple urge other hate crime sufferers to speak out after their neighbour is convicted of harassment.”

The story goes on to give details of the sentence given to the offender and says: “After the case his victims told of their nightmare and urged other hate crime sufferers to speak out. The victim said: ‘I would like to thank the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. People should not have to put up with harassment, whether it is racial or homophobic or anything. I would urge anyone in that situation to report it. I believe this case shows that something can be done about it.’”