The New York Times' Coverage of Executions

• Author: Lisa Munden,Philip L. Reichel
• DOI: 10.1177/104398628900500404
• Published date: 01 December 1989
• Date: 01 December 1989
• Subject Matter: Articles

220

The

New

York

Times’

Coverage

of

Executions

by

Philip

L.

Reichel

and

Lisa Munden

ABSTRACT

This

article

addresses

two

general

questions:

1)

Is

the

news

media

consistent

regarding

the

coverage

given

executions?

and

2)

Does

the

content

of

news

reports

on

executions

provide

information

relevant

to

fairness/

unfairness

issues

associated

with

the

death

penalty?

With

the

New

York Times

as

the

single

data

source,

researchers

used

the

total

words

written

for

each

execution,

and

the

story’s

presence

or

absence

on

the

front page, as

dependent

variables.

The

authors

argue

that

the

prestige

andinfluence

of

the

Times

makes

it

an

acceptable

sole

data

source

and

provides

areasonable

basis

for drawing

initial

conclusions

about newspaper coverage of executions.

Theonly

variable

found

to influence

New

YorkTimes’

coverage ofexecutions

was

the

number

of

days passed

since

the

U.S.

Supreme

Court

upheld

death

penalty

statutes.

Specifically,

the

more recent

the

execution,

the

fewer

words

written.

Also,

news

coverage

was

not

found

to

contain

information

which

could

be

used

to

draw

conclusion

about

the

fairness/

unfairness

of

the

death

penalty.

In

1972

the

United

States

Supreme

Court

struck

down

the

death

penalty

statute

of

Georgia

(Furman

v.

Georgia)

and

forced

other

states

with

death

penalt3~

provisions

to

re-examine

their

statutes.

Because

both

the

majority

and

the

minority

decisions

were

so

divided,

it

was

difficult

to

determine

exactly

what

type

provisions

would

satisfy

the

Justices.

On

July

2,

1976,

the

Court

provided

the

answer

when

it

upheld

the

death

penalty

laws

of

three

states

(Georgia,

Texas,

and

Florida)

which

provided

for

guided

discretion

in

imposing

capital

punishment.

Those

decisions

(Gregg

v.

Georgia, Jurek v.

Texas,

and Proff

v,

Florida),

gave

impetus

to

the

resumption

of

executions

in

the

United

States

with

the

first

(since

1967)

taking

place

on

January

17,