The Press on Trial Crimes and Trials as Media Events

Subjects:

• Communications » Mass Media
• Law » Criminal Law
• Law » Contemporary Law
• Law » Constitutional Law

Reviews:

• Collectively, these authors have produced a new volume that contributes to the literature in the field and adds to the conversation about the influence of the news media on public perceptions of crimes and trials....[I]t is a useful reference and would be a good "reader" in appropraite courses.
  —Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
• The book is a solid historical collection for professional journalists, media managers, and most especially, students of journalism history.
  —Journalism History
• Readers in search of diversion will find concise accounts of arresting cases. Some chapters might jump-start undergraduate papers about trials and alert students to "trials of the century" that involved defendants who played neither football nor the saxophone. The average college student could learn about the Scottsboro Boys, Alger Hiss, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the Chicago Seven, or the Haymarket Riot. Each case has inspired a substantial literature to which the capsules in this volume might direct students....The greatest virtue of this assortment may be its journalistic bent.
  —The Law and Politics Book Review

Table of Contents:

• Preface: The Opening Statement
• The Case of John Peter Zenger (1735) "A monkey...about 4 foot high" by Gene Wiggins
• The Case of the Boston Massacre (1770) "A melancholy demonstration" by Carol Sue Humphrey
• The Case of John Brown (1859) "John Brown still lives!" by Bernell Tripp
• The Case of the Haymarket Riot (1886) "This is the happiest moment of my life!" by Kittrell Rushing
• The Case of Lizzie Borden (1893) "Elizabeth Borden took an ax" by Donald Avery
• The Case of Harry K. Thaw (1907) "You have ruined my wife!" by Janet S. Boyle
• The Case of the Chicago Black Sox (1921) "Say it ain't so Joe" by Lloyd Chiasson Jr.
• The Case of John Scopes (1925) "In the beginning..." by Lloyd Chiasson Jr.
• The Case of the Scottsboro Boys (1931) "Bigots whose mouths are slits in their faces" by Michael Maher
• The Case of Bruno Hauptmann (1935) "The greatest story since the Resurrection" by Alfred N. Delahaye
• The Cases of Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs (1949, 1951) "Would you open your mouth..." by Joseph McKerns
• The Case of Lieutenant William Calley (1970) "We were all kind of crazed" by James Stewart
• The Case of the Chicago Seven (1969) "The pigs are coming, the pigs are coming" by Arthur Kaul
• The Case of Charles Manson (1970) "Plump ripe rabbits" by Robert W. Dardenne
• The Case of O. J. Simpson (1995) "No closer to Greek tragedy than Oedipus Hertz" by Paul Thaler
• The Verdict by Michael Maher and Lloyd Chiasson Jr.
• Selected Bibliography
• Index