Media Coverage of Crime and Criminal Justice: infotainment

That is the slogan for TruTV, formally known as CourtTV.

An analysis of its website, trutv.com, finds the following shows being advertised on the website:
Of these 21 shows, more than one-quarter deal with crime and criminal justice. Two of the shows in particular stand out, including Forensic Files and Police POV.

Here is the description of Forensic Files:

Forensic Files: science has never been more entertaining. Since its inception in 1996, this groundbreaking show has aired hundreds of smash episodes about the dramatic world of forensic science. Forensic Files follows investigators as they piece together bizarre sets of clues from crime scenes, accident sites and victims of dangerous diseases to build evidence through a whodunit, half-hour race against time. As the actual police officers, victims and suspects come together to discuss what really happened, you'll see a show that isn't reality - it's actuality.

And here is the description for Police POV:

It's the most intense police series ever. Police POV captures what it's really like to be a cop, with every wild moment caught on the new AXON camera from TASER, from their point-of-view. All the car chases, drug busts, foot pursuits and struggles with hidden guns, just as the cops see it. You'll never look at law enforcement the same way again.

Neither of these shows is realistic. Both are meant to be entertaining, and both create major misconceptions of criminal justice in viewers. Watching these shows leads one to believe that crimes are usually solved with forensic science techniques (false), and that policing is often exciting and focused on life and death crime situations (false).

Other shows feature random acts of violence or crime, even though their title does not hint that they are about these topics. Take Operation Repo, for example, which shows some pretty ridiculous characters seizing property of others, often being confronted with angry and people threatening and even using violence. And the show Bait Car sets people up to steal cars, cars that happen to be rigged with hidden cameras and microphones and which can be controlled from remote including locking the car so the offenders cannot get out.

I suppose it is entertaining to see people make stupid mistakes like stealing a nice car with the keys left in it, so that we can take joy at their suffering, laugh at them, and then end up paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to incarcerate each one of them.

Here is what is listed under the "Videos" tab of trutv.com:
That is basically a bunch of videos about crime, sex, nudity, disaster, and did I mention, crime?

If any one network has "perfected" the delivery of infotainment, it is TruTV. And you don't even have to have a TV to see it, since it is now all online.

The network even has a "crime library" featuring pages on Serial Killers, Notorious Murders, Criminal Mind, Terrorists & Spies, Gangsters, and more.

Check it out. Just don't spend too much time there, as every minute spent on the page lowers your IQ by about one point.

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Thursday, April 7, 2011

Not reality, actuality