Elected executions in the US print news media

Abstract

In the USA, 125 (11.6%) of the inmates executed between 1977 and 2006 elected to halt legal petitions, thereby hastening their own executions. Prior research on defense attorneys suggests that the news may play a pivotal role in the dynamic of elected executions (EEs). This study examines print news media coverage of 52 EEs occurring in six US states between 1979 and 2006. Thematic content analysis examined 749 Associated Press articles, identifying the frames journalists evoke when discussing EEs. When normalizing EEs, journalists commonly frame stories in terms of inmate choice; when problematizing EEs, they tend to question inmates’ competency. Coverage is most intense when states have their first EE or during the execution of a famous inmate. Findings suggest that the alternation between these two frames (choice and competency) is consistent with competing legal notions of fairness: honoring defendants’ wishes vs. maintaining the integrity of the legal process. Moreover, findings suggest that current news frames help render EEs palatable, upholding the larger cultural idealization of capital punishment as ‘clean.’

Keywords:

• elected executions
• media coverage
• choice and competency
• capital punishment as clean

Notes

1. Yanich (1997) explores both production factors (such as the placement of the story in the broadcast) and content of local news coverage of the death penalty.

2. Detweiler (1987) conducts a factor analysis of survey data from 107 respondents in newspaper and TV journalism, including 34 reporters, 55 editors, and 15 supervisors. The exploratory study examines the presence of different ‘belief clusters’ among journalists who cover execution, differentiating between ‘traditional,’ ‘interpretive,’ and ‘activist’ perspectives. ‘Traditionally, belief clusters of journalists, particularly for those associated with activist and traditionalists, have been imbued with suggestions of ideology. Activists were for change; traditionalists supported status quo … [T]his study suggests that sense of [personal] involvement rather than any sort of ideology is the key to the different journalistic perspectives found’ (Detweiler, 1987, pp. 461, 462).