The Media

The Media takes part in most investigations that take place, their role can sometimes be helpful to the police but it can affect the investigation in a bad way. The media can help the police by notifying the public about a danger such as if a there has been a murder in the area of if a picture has been found of the offender the public can call the police if they know or have seen the person. However, they can as much harm as good as they can release information that the police do not want them to release, they can also be unethical as the media can release pictures of the crime scene and murder victims which the family would not want them to release. If the media was at a different investigation then their roles and responsibilities would not change as they are only their for one reason which is to find out what has happened so they can inform the public what has happened, this would stay the same for every scene, the only thing that would change is what they write as the crimes would be different.


OJ Simpson:

Like most cases the media was involved, however, the OJ Simpson case where he allegedly killed Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman was different. Due to OJ Simpson being a professional American Football player and a national icon the media where all over this case and it got front news in the paper for as long as the investigation lasted. Even though the police are not usually too happy with the media in the first place (as they can release information that the police did not want them to as it could be ethically and morally wrong), it was a completely different story. The media affected the case in a much larger way than they usually do and this having a part in contaminating the bodies of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman. They did this by sneaking into the scene before the SOCO team could arrive to take pictures and document what had happened, to try to stop the media from photographing the bodies (as the police thought it would be morally wrong as the families of the victims would not want to see it in the paper) they put towels found in the house over them, this resulted in the bodies becoming contaminated which meant the evidence found on the bodies could not be used in court.