Checklist for Crime Stories
In his book The Reporter’s Guide, Richard Critchfield suggests the following checklist for use by reporters when covering crime stories:
- Casualties: Anyone killed? How? Anyone injured? How? Was there shooting, stabbing, or fighting? How were the dead disposed of, the injured treated? Were there any well-known names involved?
- Property Loss: Value of property lost or damaged. What was stolen, defaced, or destroyed? Method of Crime: How did they break in? What weapons were carried and used? How did the criminals treat the victims? Was the crime similar to any previous crime?
- Motive: Was there a confession? (Can it be used safely?) What did the police and other witnesses have to say?
- Arrest: What were the arrested men’s names, ages, occupations? What did the arresting constable have to say? What is the formal charge? Where was the prisoner taken? Did the police show unusual courage or cunning?
- Clues: What clues were left behind at the scene of the crime? What clues did the witnesses provide? What clues are the police investigating?
- Search: Will the police find the culprit and arrest him? Probability? Is there a description of the missing person (s)?
Check list for Natural Disasters
For Natural Disasters of any kind like earthquakes etc. he suggests the following list:
- Casualties: Number killed or injured. Number who escaped Nature of injuries
- Property Damage: Estimated loss in rupees (giving official source) Insurance protection Significance of property lost other than monetary.
- Cause of Disaster: Statements from participants, witnesses, officials. How and when accident discovered, and by whom?
- Rescue and Relief: Number of people engaged in rescue work. Handicaps, such as wind, rains, Care of victims; where treated, etc. Individual bravery and heroism
- Description: Spread of fire, height of flames; appearance of flood, duration, blasts, and explosions, Collapsing houses, walls of buildings.
- Human Interest: Number of spectators, how controlled. Unusual events or occurrences Individual narratives and interesting sidelights
- Subsequent Action: Possible investigation; possible negligence. Clearly not all these questions will apply to every story; equally there will be others that should be asked in some circumstances. They are intended only as a guide to the type of inquiries than an active reporter will pursue. Care must always be taken to ensure that nothing appears in a news story which may prejudice either the innocent or those who have suffered through no fault of their own. It is not a newspaper’s job to conduct trials or expect in exceptional circumstances to try to pry into the private grief.
Covering Court matters: It is necessary for the reporter to have some idea of how the courts function and deal with the crime cases and how reporting can be conducted on crime stories.
The state provides an apparatus, called a court, so that one person may sue another person to enforce his rights or to redress or prevent a wrong. This same mechanism is also used by the state to punish a person who commits an act that is injurious to society.
An example of the first situation is when Ramesh owes Sunil Rs. 50,000 but refuses to pay him. Sunil may employ an attorney to file an action against Ramesh. Sunil, who is called the “plaintiff,” must pay a small fee to a court to recompense the state in part for the time spent by the court clerk and process servers. Sunil must also pay fees and travel expenses for any witnesses who testify in his behalf. If he wins .the case, he possibly may recover from Ramesh these costs in addition to the Rs. 50, 000 debt. But the state pays the salary of the judge, the clerk, and the bailiff and supplies the courtroom. The state does this because it would be disadvantageous to society if private rights could be protected only by private justice. This may take the perhaps in the form of violence.
This same mechanism is available to a private party to redress a wrong, as when Rakesh is injured when he is struck by Rajesh’s automobile. It is also available to a private party to prevent a wrong, as when the XYZ Corporation is infringing a patent that was developed by the ABC Corporation from further infringement and also to pay damages to the ABC Corporation.
Reporting Riot stories: The coverage of riot news is shaped by a more general policy. An official memorandum on riot coverage explains that executive producer or a riot reporter makes an effort to use the minimum amount of riot footage following the riots. The correspondent is made aware of the “rioting” and “tense situation” but the producer decides before he edits the story that it should emphasize the restoration of peace rather than continued violence (and he agreed). One producer says that it is his responsibility to “evaluate all the information, including the social context” of a news happening and then “decide how it should be presented”. In evaluating such a story it must be decided whether the violence is “isolated incidents” or a “general trend”. This requires a prognosis of the probable future consequences of a happening, and some idea of what is- and what is not part of the general train of events. Unlike a mirror, which is automatic, both an informational and a value premise shape the image in television news. To describe network news as mirroring events thus necessarily involves before and after the fact by executives and newsmen.
Human Interest: In this kind of news, which usually focuses on an individual rather than a group, the actual subject is a feeling or an emotion.
Writers, however, don’t editorialize or express subjective reaction. They achieve their effect best by “putting the reader there,” by showing the event or situation that arouses emotions or a sense of humor. This is sensory writing, close to kin or fiction, and reporters often use narrative and other literary methods. They round out the story with color, description, anecdote, dramatic quotes, or dialogue, but as in any other reporting, they never go beyond the provable facts.
A human Interest story from an AP correspondent SEATILE. Dec 27. (AP)- A couple with six children adopted another six just in time for Christmas, and now they plan to expand their home.
“I can’t imagine any of them being any less than our own,” said Margaret Thimsen who along with her husband, Ronald, adopted the new family members at a special hearing on Friday.
“Ron and I have one big problem. We don’t know how to withhold love,” Mrs. Thimsen said. “So often in foster-home situations, withholding becomes a necessity. You just can’t let yourself get too attached to someone you’re going to lose. In our case, we don’t lose, “We keep.” The new children include siblings James 12 Nina, eight, Joseph, seven and Rayna, five. Also adopted were two-year-old Christopher and seven-year-old Anne, who joins her two sister’s Mildred, 11 and Diane, 10 who were adopted by the Thimsens in 1984.
The other children are Kin, nine, adopted in 1983, Mary, 212 adopted in 1971, and the Thimsens’ biological children Dennis, 27 and Debbie, 23 who live in California and were home for the holiday weekend.
Nine of the adopted Thimsen children were unwanted. All but Christopher were victims of physical or sexual abuse. Christopher’s story is unique. He is Mary’s son, so he is now both an adoptive son and grandson to the Thimsens.
“Mary’s life has not been easy,” Mrs. Thimsen said “She just didn’t feel she could be a mother when she wasn’t ready, so we thought, “why not? How could we have done otherwise?”
Mr. Thimsen, who works in the maintenance department of a research firm, said the family plans to add two bedrooms to its three bedrooms home.
A human Interest science story-a series of organizational processes. Telephoning from a Moving Train If technology has helped to shrink: distances, it has also served to revolutionize communications. Take, for instance, the following announcement on a German Integrity train:” ………and in the first-class open saloon coach at the end of the train there is a pay-telephone available for domestic and international calls…”. All Integrity first-class open saloon coaches of which there are currently 138-carry pay -telephones, the installation of which began in 1983.
The technical complexity of the system as well as the operation of the radio relay stations, necessitate higher rates than charged for normal telephone services. The rate applicable to the train includes the fee charged for the distance and an additional “radio channel fee’, which the pay-telephone computes automatically. Coins may be inserted, at the rate of DM 0.50 and the telephones will also accept DM 5, DM I, and 10 fenny pieces. All unused coins are returned when replacing the receiver. By pressing the green button, the remaining credit can be used for additional calls. Before finishing the call. Inserting smaller value coins can also return coins of higher value.
Deutsche Bundesbahn plans to switch from coins to magnetic token cards, commencing in 1989 and to be completed by 1992, when the Federal Post Office will replace the present B2 radio network with the new C type network. The magnetic token cards will be similar to those used for the new post office token card telephones’. The new facility is expected to be a boon to business travellers and all those to whom quick communication is vital.
