Med döden i vitögat. En kvalitativ undersökning om kriminaljournalisters relation till etik

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate how external influence affects Swedish crime journalists in the prevailing media landscape. The study focuses on how crime journalist’s ethics are affected today and if the newsworthiness has been affected by this. During the 21st century the society has gone through drastic technical changes, including journalism and media in general. We live in a society where there is a growing demand from the audience regarding details and in depth crime journalism. Journalists who cover crime work in a sensitive field, especially when speaking in terms of ethics, consideration for victims and their relatives. Furthermore the interest regarding crime has always been an attractive subject for the audience, but the publications have relied on journalistic expertise. During the last 20 years the digital development has given the genre true crime a whole new status. News worthiness is the theoretical framework which this study relies on. This theory is a fundamental part of the journalistic profession. Newsworthiness describes the reasons why an occurrence becomes newsworthy. To implement the theory about newsworthiness we chose the qualitative interviewing method. To participate in the study the requirements for the journalist was to have at least five years of work experience as a journalist with focus on crime. Our aim was to find participants for different parts of the country, to ensure the representative quality of the study. Nine crime journalists who met the requirements were selected. The result of the study showed that the digitalization has had a crucial impact on the journalistic workflow. The ability to follow the audiences behavior patterns and what they prefer to read has resulted in a new way to perform newsworthiness. This gives the audience more power than they have had before. There is an extended competition and pressure in the field, despite this the study showed that journalistic ethics has been preserved and has become even stronger. The interviews showed that the genre true crime does not have the impact on crime journalism that we first predicted. On the other hand science indicates that the journalists are characterized by internalized ideals of which they themselves are not aware.