Anakin Hall

Professor Corken

Criminal Law

23 October 2015

Opinion Paper

The criminal justice field is known to most and is normally portrayed in the media we see daily.

Whether its television shows or news reports showcasing the crimes that have been taking place in and

around your neighborhood. The media has had a long relationship with covering Criminal justice

categories, but as time has went on, the way it has been covered is not in the best interest in the field or

the community. The media does not fully understand how the Criminal justice system works and

because of this, it can falsely communicate the information that is trying to be shown. This has been

found throughout the three articles I have been examining from different perspectives of the criminal

justice system and each point has interesting means on how they view the field as a whole.

The first of the three articles I read was, “Real-Life ‘CSI’ Isn’t Sexy” was written by Raina Kelley.

Her article was about her experience with the reality of the criminal justice system versus how it is

portrayed on television. Kelley traveled to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic

Science (AAFS) in San Antonio, Texas. Of the three days she attended the event, she saw all of her

television favorites become exposed to how the criminal justice fields actually worked. Everything in the

real world takes more time and money and cannot always be proven accurate because of all of the

variables that can happen on a daily basis, unlike the scripted shows such as “CSI”, “Law and Order”,

“Criminal Intent” and ‘Cold Case” that can solves these crimes within an hour of programming. After her

attendance of the event, her eyes were open to the inaccuracies of her favorite television shows and

was more aware about her surroundings after she had learned the truth about the criminal justice
system. It is not “sexy” like she once believed, but it is actually boring and very slow because of the

limited resources they possess.

The second article I read was titled, “Prosecutors and the Media; Is It Time to Redo Rules 3.6

and 3.8?”. This piece was written by Thomas Robertson, who was the President of the National

Association of Prosecutor Coordinators and Executive Secretary for the Michigan Prosecuting Attorneys

Coordinators Council. In his work published in 2007, Robertson discussed how the technology in the 21st

century was beginning to change the way crime was recorded and found. He believed that with these

new technological advances that we should amend the Rules 3.6 and 3.8 to allow the use of public

communication and making extrajudicial statements. Rule 3.6 and 3.8 state that a lawyer that is

participating or has participated in an investigation cannot make extrajudicial statements that would be

spread through public communications. If these rules were changed to fit the needs of the now

Prosecutors would be able to be more open information to the public and would be able to acquire

more data as well.

The final article I looked over was, “Thoughts on coverage of the legal system” by Gil Cranberg.

Gil was a former editor for the Des Moines Register and Tribune and now, at the time of this piece,

teaches at the University of Iowa in Mass Communication and the School of Journalism. His article

includes his own ideas on how to improve the news coverage of the courts and the judicial system. He

feels the media should have more in depth reports on trials and other news surrounding the judicial

system such as pretrial proceedings and bonds so that the public has a better understanding of what

they focusing on.

All three of these articles realize the problems the media and the criminal justice face every day.

The media does not do an overall great job of explaining what is going on to the public and it can be very

confusing to those who do not know how the criminal justice field operates. Each article explains in a
different way, whether it is directly stated or implied, on how the media can accurately depict what is

going on. From giving the public and prosecutors more freedom to allow them both to share vital

information with each other to how real life crime investigations should look instead of the artificial

looks it is giving on television.

Even though these articles are very similar by the means they are trying to accomplish, each

article is still unique in its own way. Even though the article by Ms. Kelley was an eye opener for most

about the difference between the television shows and real life, the media more than likely portrays the

field of criminal justice the way it does so it can be made for entertainment mainly. That is why

everything happens so fast within a show so that they can fit it into the time slot. With the articles by Gil

Cranberg and Thomas Robertson, they mainly focus on changes that should be made. Robertson’s piece

is mainly about the amending or rules to fit our needs while Cranberg’s article was about changes the

media should make about covering the judicial system in particular.

After my own personal input and knowledge on the topic with the newly added information I

have acquired from these articles, I can agree that the media does not give prime examples of what the

criminal justice system entails. To better understand this information more clearly in the future, I

believe that the media itself should get a better understanding of how the criminal justice system works

and learn the true nature of how they help society and how much time and effort they put in to help out

our country.