As sniper hunt grows, role of media blurs

When an angry Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose railed against media "interference" in the case of the D.C.-area sniper Wednesday, he touched off a new round of discussion in an age-old debate: whether the media help or hinder in such highly charged investigations.

The police often have a love-hate relationship with the media, which was evident when Chief Moose, moments later, thanked news outlets for publicizing the citizen-tip hot line, a key part of the case.

News outlets aren't always known for covering crime in proportion to its occurence, or even tastefully. Yet the crimebusting success of shows like "America's Most Wanted" highlights the media's power to educate, inform, and even break cases.

"It's a mixed bag. The media can be helpful, and the media can be hurtful – and usually it's both, especially when a killer is on the loose," says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston.

In the D.C. case, the local CBS affiliate, WUSA, Channel 9, uncovered the fact that police had found a note – scrawled on a tarot card – near the scene of Monday's shooting. It read, "Dear Policeman, I am God."

That set off Moose, who said at yesterday's press conference, "I ask my community, do you want the police department to work the case or do you want Channel 9 to work the case? Let me know because there is no room, in my mind, for both of us."

Media watchers don't agree on what effect such information will have on the case or the public.

Some defend Channel 9's report, saying it simply passed along information from police insiders. Channel 9 says those sources wanted the public to have more information.

Indeed, the tarot-card clue could help the public identify someone with an interest in such cards.

Yet ultimately, the report isn't educational or particularly useful. "This is not the kind of information that will help citizens avoid being victimized," says Professor Levin, who directs the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict. And there's the risk that the killer or killers will see details of the case in the media – and alter their methods in order to avoid detection.

That instant playback and news-saturation phenomenon is relatively new.

Two decades ago, stories like the one unfolding in Maryland and its environs would have been important on the local level, but in the absence of the cable news channels, would not have received as much attention nationally. Now reporters are constantly looking for information and updates on big stories.

And journalists sometimes try to advance the story themselves – especially when there's no new news – sometimes reaching new levels of aggressiveness.

Overall, there is evidence that over the past 20 years the media and society have become more focused on murderers and the details of their lives.

Consider that during the 1970s, People magazine featured only one murderer on its cover – but during the late '80s and the '90s, it gave that prominent play to dozens of killers.

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