Francine Tyler

Citation

Thesis Title
Killing innocents : An analysis of historical news reporting of multiple-child murders in New Zealand and the legislation that changed the crime reporting framework

The way the media writes about crime may affect audience understanding of the event, the perpetrator and the victim. Ms Tyler examined how New Zealand journalists, working between 1870 and 1930, named and framed those involved in multiple-child murders. She also analysed the evolution of New Zealand’s name suppression laws and how these affected crime reporting. She found that media gave a greater profile to the accused killers over their victims, and that potentially prejudicial words were often used to create combinations of ‘mad’, ‘bad’ and ‘sad’ frames for the accused killers. The examination of New Zealand’s name suppression laws revealed that the restrictions on the information which may be published in crime and court news have been imposed gradually over more than 100 years and have eroded press freedoms in New Zealand. The research illuminates a little-examined area of New Zealand’s media history.

Supervisors
Associate Professor Elizabeth Gray
Dr Catherine Strong