In her blog, Pathology Expert, Dr. Amy Melinek, author of the best-selling book titled “Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 bodies and the Making of a Medical Examiner”, has included A Forensic Primer of Journalists in which she says,
“Forensics is complicated, and sound bites are few. But always keep in mind that you are exploring a story about a dead human being. You owe it to that person—and to your audience, and to the public record—to get the details of the death investigation rigorously right.”
Sadly, judging from the standard of crime coverage in India, one would imagine that this is an alien concept and that nothing is owed to the dead – or the living, for that matter. Given that crime is unendingly fascinating and that crime reporting continues to enjoy a high level of popularity even among journalists, this is a pity.
Who can forget the criticism of the media in its coverage of high-profile cases like the Nithari serial murders, the horrendous details gleefully uncovered by reporters in the murder and dismemberment of TV executive Neeraj Grover by Bollywood starlet Maria Susairaj and her then fiancé, the murder of journalist J Dey in Powai, and, most memorable of all, the killing of 13-year-old Aarushi and the family servant in Delhi in 2008.
In each case, hungry for so-called exclusives, the media wrote increasingly wilder and ever more sensational stories. In the Aarushi case, they resorted to absolute slander, conjecture, and speculation about the victim and her family.
They swallowed everything the police told them, attended every press conference enthusiastically and seemed to suspend both disbelief and common sense. The case resulted in the parents of the child going to jail, and it was only after they served four years did the High Court in Allahabad acquit them.
Ironically, much of the credit for their release is being laid upon the fine piece of investigative journalism and reporting in the case by another journalist, Avirook Sen, but that is another story.
In the Dey case, similar wild conjecture resulted in another journalist being imprisoned without bail. She was released last year, but the case is on-going.
In the Neeraj Grover case, the media enthusiastically reported that the body of the victim had been chopped into 300 pieces! Did anyone actually stop to count? At which point was this done, when the remains were found in two bags far from Mumbai? Where did they get this information – from the police or the accused? Nothing was clarified, no follow up done on this vital piece of information. The alleged apathy of the police.
Some years ago, South Mumbai was transfixed by reports that small children were turning up dead near the shanty towns of Gita Nagar in Cuffe Parade. There were few resemblances between the cases, but the idea of a serial killer on the prowl proved too rich for the media to resist.
Then followed highly critical reports on the alleged apathy of the police, and predictably, the next reported development was bizarre. The police claimed to be picking up hundreds of men at random with the avowed aim of subjecting them to random DNA tests.
All of this was faithfully reported, as if DNA testing, which is very expensive, could be done merely to keep the media at bay. Again, no-one asked when the results would be available or questioned why the rights of these random men were being violated, in the absence of any evidence linking them to the deaths even circumstantially!
Forensics refers to scientific tests or techniques used in connection with the detection of a crime, and a reporter who wishes to develop as a crime journalist should understand this is a tool to enable truthful, objective and fact-based reporting. There are REASONS for this:
1.) You know whom to approach for a particular piece of scientific information. Thus, understand that a coroner gives you the status of a body, but a medical examiner will be able to elaborate on the coroner’s report and tell you the exact methodology of death.
2.) Forensics helps you figure out differences in terminology. EG, a homicide is not the same as a murder. The first is a death at the hands of someone who may not necessarily even be charged if the investigation shows there was no criminal intent, or that the death was an accident. A murder shows criminal intent.
3.) Forensics enables you to ask intelligent questions. When you are told a man has been picked up for allegedly raping his own small daughter, ensure the facts are complete. Was the child examined medically at the very least? Has he or she been placed in a safe shelter? Have anyone’s human rights been violated in the investigation of the so-called crime?
4.) Forensics also have to do with some knowledge of the law and policing in society, hence a journalist reporting crime with an exposure to this discipline will be able to do a much better job than someone who writes from the perspective of rage or sympathy, or with a view to exciting the public as sensationally as possible.
5.) Finally, forensic tools enable best practices in investigative journalism, the foundation for any story that requires legwork and brainwork to write credibly.
This is not to say that crime reporting needs a degree in Forensic Science in order to be effective and beneficial to the reading public. But every reporter, faced with a crime beat, would benefit from exposure to a module on forensics as a journalistic tool.
Such a module would include core topics, like eyewitness memory, interviewing techniques, the difference between evidence and proof, and how to unravel the threads in complex cases, simplifying so as to keep readers informed and authorities on their toes. So that the journalist becomes a collaborator with police and law in the business of communicating the worst and the best aspects of society to itself.
In other words, to be a proper crime reporter, one must ensure that one is fair to one’s readers as well as the victim and the accused, for both are protagonists in the story of man’s inhumanity to man.
