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The Crime Stories Podcast discusses the media's portrayal of crimes and its impact on society. Two cases are discussed: the Croydon stabbing where a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death, and the ongoing Zara Alina case. The media focuses on violent and graphic details to attract readers and viewers. The case raises concerns about safety and parenting, and highlights the normalization of such violent incidents in the news. The media's coverage of these cases is driven by factors like spectacle, violence, and involving children, as identified by criminologists Yvonne Dukes and Steve Chibnall. Hi guys and welcome back to the Crime Stories Podcast. Today you're joined by your hosts me Kate McAllister and Madge Wahodan and we're joined by our experts as well Madeline Robertson and Sasha Braben. So today we're going to be discussing media's representation of crimes and we're going to be talking about how the media depicts these crimes and the effect that the media has on society and the two cases we're going to be focusing on are the Croydon stabbing which happened not long ago in September this year and then we're going to go on to discuss the Zara Alina case which happened in 2022 but is still ongoing in the news at the minute and she was murdered after a night out. So to begin I'm going to hand over to your other hosts Naj and Madeline and they're going to be discussing the Croydon stabbing. Madeline could you walk us through what happened on September 27th? So this is a very devastating case which happened on September the 27th 2023 at a bus stop just outside of Whitgrift shopping centre on Wellesley Road in Croydon South London. So this is a very recent case especially among the crime stories in the media. So what happened? Eliane Andam was a 15 year old female who was sadly stabbed to death during rush hour in the morning of her school day. The legal reasons her attacker cannot be named however the information we have on him was that he is one he's a male two he was 17 years old which I actually believe is really heartbreaking part of the case as it's so awful that a young girl lost her life but for it to have been caused by someone her of her age demographic is utterly devastating. He was charged with this murder and within the media it has been widely spoken about making its way onto headline news of multiple media platforms such as the Guardian, Daily Mail, the Mirror, Sky News, BBC and even the New York Post. The Sky News article is one which I'm going to use to draw out information upon this case. The title of the article is girl 15 stabbed to death on way to school as teenage boy is arrested. Within this case we can see the key ideas and themes I would like to go into from this headline which is one the girl is described as a school girl, two the girl was repeatedly stabbed outside of a bus after attacker produced a knife from his pocket in dispute over a bag. The boy stabbed the girl in the neck with a knife multiple times. These all link to Yvonne Duke's idea of newsworthiness which is discussed later on. I did just want to give a mention to a victim statement which was stated on Sky News article where bystanders described the scene as blood was coming like water everyone was screaming. This creates a very vivid and gory imagery to the public which again links to Yvonne Duke's newsworthiness idea to be discussed momentarily. Stephen Shielborn is a criminologist who Yvonne Duke's built their idea of newsworthiness upon. Naj, can you just give us the lowdown of what newsworthiness is? Right, Duke identifies seven key imperatives which makes crime story newsworthy. For example these are risk, sex, celebrity and high status person, proximity, violence, spectacle or graphic images and children. This story does hit a lot of the point where Duke is saying however definitely brings the point of his violent spectacle and violent imagery and involving children and proximity. Madeline, could you please tell us how this links back to the Andom case? So the idea of it being a very mundane task which everyone must do and which every child must do and what every parent must allow their child to do makes us feel very unsafe about the situation and especially the idea of heading off to school. The idea of violence in this case can be seen through this as a senseless act as described by a witness from the scene. The reason this was reported on so heavily in the media is because it does in fact hit four of the elements which Naj just said. It interestingly draws on readership and viewing creating popularity for newspaper slash newspaper outlets. This could be seen as a very selfish reason to do this especially since the demographic is such a young age. I wouldn't worry. Yeah don't worry about it. We've done about five minutes so far. Oh really? Yeah five minutes. Oh shit. This is going to be like 10 minutes long guys. Oh god yeah. Sorry I didn't just run. Right sorry I've just got um. Just pulled the timer for you. Thank you. I've been muddled up. I'm now scrolling down to the bottom of my page. Let me just move this. It's fine. I just gotta move this. I hadn't done this bit yet. She's gotta sound interested. Um should I um wait is this all getting recorded? Yeah this is but we are just going to cut this all out right? Okay that's fine. Um shall I because you talked about like specific news articles and stuff like that. Like I have a few up. Um shall I just name them? Like to spend a bit of time honestly. I mean there's the BBC News one that's from 14th of December 2022 actually. Maybe that's not a good one. Although that is a year ago. That's less than a year. That is less than a year ago actually. Because will we relate it to like a particular. Did I just cross that out? Madeline do you remember where you got to? Um yeah I can just kind of waffle on now. Okay. But it's just because I just had to. I thought we were going to do the. If you want to have a bit of a conversation about it. Like you can you can ask me questions whatever. Yeah actually I might. I might because I haven't actually done. I was going to do the Yvonne Dukes bit first. Do that but then if you want to kill some time you could say something like uh obviously in relation to how this impacts society. How do you how does this case make you feel? And I'll go on if you want. Let me. Do we remember what I just what I just said? I said about the senseless acts didn't I? Yeah. Right okay. Okay. I'm going to ask you. So I'm going to ask you guys what you think about the violence of the case is and how it's portrayed in the media. Oh god I don't I don't know that much about this case. Yeah because I don't know that much about this case. If you want to ask me about the victims. Okay. Three. How are we doing? How are we doing guys? Okay I will start the clock and with you. So this could be seen as a very selfish reason especially since this good demographic is so young. The headlines do include her specific ages activity and what is happening during the case. Kate can you give us your opinion on the violence of this case? I think it's really sad. Like you said about the person going to school. I just think it's really shocking and I do think the media is like picking up on the violence of it especially when you read that witness statement. I just think that stuff doesn't necessarily need to be put out in the media. Like they're definitely picking up on it being a spectacle which you've said is one of um Von Dukes's newsworthiness points. 100%. It's definitely a spectacle. The stabbing like the description of it is very violent and you can tell that the media is kind of picking up on that cell stories realistically. I just think the graphic nature of it is such a shock factor especially when it involves children. Obviously we cannot name the attacker but the fact that he is a child and that we can't name him it does just it's groundbreaking and it does just make everyone really think about their parenting and the fact that parents are then having this fear installed in their minds just about their kids walking to school by themselves. This shouldn't be the way our society should be able to live which again brings in proximity which is one of Yvonne Duke's ideas. Again like I said the violent imagery and the graphic imagery that is being portrayed in the media by her being stabbed to death it's something very something about this was very inappropriate but it is the news and that is kind of what they're going to do which I guess is kind of weird you could say. It's a bit like morbid curiosity I suppose because people enjoy reading this stuff they wouldn't put it out if it didn't sell but we all think that it's wrong and yet we read it we enjoy reading it. Not enjoy that's the wrong thing to say really but we find it interesting. It's the normalization of it as well like the fact that we can't really like log on to the news and not hear of something so devastating and gory and like this is what's making the headlines it's nothing happy nowadays it's something so devastating and so young. You know what to expect when you're watching the news and we watch it anyway so obviously people do find this interesting it's selling it's number one news story and it was the days I was reading about this when it happened and I was shocked and I read up on the case multiple times afterwards as it was happening so I was invested in it as a reader which is why they use these like shock factor values and things draw the reader in and it works. It's as if it's a book it's as if like because we don't know them we have such a connection with it and we're making our own connections to the story which is just crazy and it's heartbreaking for family and my thoughts and prayers do go out to them but it's just crazy that the news can pick up on such such a case and have it such widespread. And there's so many of these sorts of cases where people I mean how many people are stabbed every day in London it's horrific but then they pick up on these specific cases I mean they've picked up on it because it's a child they've picked up on it because it's a spectacle and it's unfortunate because other people don't get this like victim status that's portrayed in this particular case. Exactly which I think is a really good idea put forward by Yvonne Dukes who did actually build her idea off of Steve Chibnall. Naj, can you just give us a lowdown of what Steve Chibnall said about newsworthiness? Chibnall introduces the idea of newsworthiness. He written the relationship between the police and the news media. He mainly focuses on the newsworthiness of crime and how it's influenced by the police and the news media. He had imperatives didn't he so those imperatives were I believe personalization and dramatization and that's just the way it is. So I think I believe personalization and dramatization and that's definitely picked up on this case. There was more but they're not quite so relevant here. 100% so with linking these two imperatives to the Elian Andan case we can see that it is a very dramatic case which can be shown through Sky News providing a witness statement describing what a young the young girl's best friend cried when the attack was happening which was is my friend dead that's my best friend. Regarding Chibnall's idea this is evidently a link to dramatization as the inclusion of this heightens the public shock of the scene in a way which I believe by describing the best friend's word makes the scene somewhat chaotic and fast which obviously we can see as a very dramatic thing. It is like what you said earlier it's like a fictional book they are literally making it into a drama. Yeah they're using all of these words to make a narrative. So Sky News also used the victim's family for a statement which links to Chibnall's idea of personalization as in society we do all have families. We all have a close bond with other people which makes the use of these statements in this case hit really close to home for a lot of people. The use of the family as a focal point of pain of the attack can be highlighted in part of the article where Sky News describes the family as being devastated. This links to personalization of the case especially when in the article they also highlight a victim's statement of it's someone's daughter which again will hit home for a lot of people because a lot of people have daughters nowadays. I mean how many of these stories do you see they mention the family that's someone's daughter that's someone's mother that's it's always used in these stories. It's meant to make you conscious of what you have and how it is personal to you as well. And it's also the press wording and the delivery of it like the screams on the case is like an evidently a good way for them to get a catchy headline which again could be considered as quite a selfish reason to mark it. It's picking on people's like own personal relationships. Yeah and it's a very like emotive language which again for dramatization is the fundamental elements of like a drama like a soap opera title it's always emotive language which again this story's headline we can see that. But yeah do you guys have any kind of things that you want to say about the case? I think it's just a very devastating and hard case to really look at especially with the ages of them I think that's crazy. I think a lot of what you've mentioned in your case is definitely highlighted in our case as well. 100%. So did you guys want to kind of let us know what your case is? Yeah so I'm Kate I'm your host. We'll cut that out. We are cutting this bit out. Quiet. Do you want me to say so do you guys want to try say that bit again? Okay yeah. So do you guys kind of want to go on to your case and link that into ours a little bit? Yeah so we're going to be talking about Zara Alina who was a 35 year old woman who was murdered in London in June 2022. Although this didn't happen this year there's still news reports on it now. I mean last week there was headlines in the news about her murder and not turning up to the trial for example. So it's still a very open case. I mean it's very much an open case. He's been charged but he's still being used in headlines and the story was sensationalized at the time and still is being. That's crazy he's still making headlines today. So I actually don't know too much about this but I'm gonna hand over to Sasha who's our expert on this one. So could you please describe what happened? Yeah so just to give you a little bit of background on this case. Zara Alina was a 35 year old woman who was sexually assaulted and murdered late at night by her attacker 29 year old Jordan McSweeney in East London. So her killer had actually previously been convicted of multiple similar offences and had only actually finished serving his most recent sentence nine days prior to the attack. So he's currently aiming to appeal his minimum sentence of 38 years for Alina's murder hence why it's so relevant today. Yeah I think that's what I saw the other day. Where did you see these stories? So I've seen them in I mean it's been reported on by both broadsheets and tabloid newspapers. So particularly in the BBC I think just in the past couple of weeks we've seen a couple of headlines come out from the BBC but also from places such as The Sun and The Mail Online. Yeah I think I saw one in The Guardian as well. And The Guardian as well yeah. So when researching this case we found out that Nils Christy's theory of the ideal victim is super relevant here. So the idea of the ideal victim is as Nils Christy described it someone who is physically weaker and unrelated to the perpetrator and in a way that they can hold no blame for their victimhood. So Zahra Alina fits the idea of the ideal victim here in the idea that she's a woman so seen well technically as physically weaker as well and she has absolutely no relation to Jordan Sweeney who I mean at that night I'm not sure if anyone's seen like the video footage of what happened but he was literally walking around searching for someone to rape as horrible as it sounds but that is exactly what was happening so she was completely unrelated to him and she was simply walking back home from a night out so it's an innocent activity. It's this idea of victim status. Yeah. She as the ideal victim she has this higher victim status and hence why it's been reported on because she's the ideal victim. Which really links to our case because Eliane she was a child she was a girl she fit the ideal victim status like her innocence is emphasized a lot in the papers. That's so interesting because in fact even though Zahra Alina was a 35 year old woman so couldn't be seen as a child or anything like that the way that she's described in the papers is very much childlike. So she was immature. She's a very it was it was the idea that she was so innocent and so you know that that that that is the only reason why she wasn't deserving of something like this to happen to her. It was that the media felt the need to express that she is the ideal victim whereas with other cases we've seen previous to this because they you know may potentially like promiscuous women or or people of like different you know. I mean Nils Christie talks about the real rape victim in one of his books and I think that she is that real rape victim. I mean it's the idea of her walking home from night doing a innocent task and she was on a night out as an innocent task. She was causing no one any harm. So yeah it's also the idea of them both being like a damsel in distress which I think the media plays on a lot to be fair especially in like TV and stuff. We can kind of see like I guess you could say like a male-centered perspective in the media really. I know that Kelly Oliver she actually says about how the male gaze is more relevant and more dangerous than ever. I believe that was in one of her books and I will get that up but she kind of describes how a male-centered perspective in the media and around films especially like this could be seen as allowing younger generations to kind of feel and internalize that boys have kind of an upper status which again in the patriarchal society that arguably we live in is this kind of empowering that and is that really backing up the idea of the patriarchy and the idea that young boys are allowed to see themselves as better than women. Is that kind of allowing for these cases to carry on and to continue? Well I think it's definitely true that the media certainly pays more attention to victims who can be termed the ideal victim so exactly people such as Zara Lina but actually when we looked at the official rape statistics of England and Wales we found that six and seven rapes against women happen by someone that they know and none of us would think that obviously because we've seen these sort of things in the media. Well the real rape victim according to Nils Christie is someone that doesn't know her perpetrator but yeah we see the statistic. So that's an interesting point is that we're seeing a statistic that doesn't level up with what people are saying. Exactly we got those statistics from the rape crisis in England and Wales from this year so it's very relevant statistics. So I think we could certainly argue and I think Nils Christie as well would argue that the purpose of doing things like this is for a method of social control and so providing more media coverage of ideal victims it aims to other certain groups of people who don't align with these existing hegemonic ideals within society. So as I was saying earlier a good example of this is like a promiscuous woman who doesn't align with traditional women traditional ideals of women being innocent and subservient to like one particular man. So in our research we actually found an article from the Mirror which it was from 2014 but I just thought it was just such a perfect example of how the media aims to other different types of women. So it's titled jealous husband kills promiscuous muslim bride after she had birthday sex with another man and I mean in itself that title is already using progressive language. It's taking away her victimhood. It's like putting a blame on her in a sense. Exactly just because she doesn't fit in with what you know the media terms the ideal victim. Yeah. So obviously the fact that she's literally called promiscuous in the title because she slept with another man and you know that the fact that the husband's only doing this because he's jealous and it's because it's her bride. I mean in the Mail article Zara Lina was described as built like a fairy so there's that difference fairy promiscuous woman. Exactly yeah. This is what I mean again into the idea of it's like someone who is very childlike someone who is very innocent and if you you know it's the idea that if you are um sorry I lost my train of thought there. Does anyone know do you know the virgin horde dichotomy? I'm just about to get a reference for that. It was it was Sully's Sully's I've got that on here. Don't buy it before you start again. Okay let me just I'm just going to move because I've got some statistics for. You could use that built like a fairy and the thing is like I think you've already got that. Yeah yeah yeah that built like a fairy thing um uh okay all right I'm just trying to figure out where I can you're fine you're fine okay I'm gonna start again. I don't think we need to worry about filling the time guys. Yeah I think that's true. I've still got some statistics to do. Okay yeah that's fine. Right quiet. So feminist sociologist Sue Lees actually refers to um the idea that you know when we say like built like it or when the media says like built like a fairy versus the promiscuous woman she refers to this as the virgin whore dichotomy and where a person's sexual history can be used to discount their victimhood hence why you know we see this sort of language which emphasizes our Alina's innocence so much. I mean what do you think about that when you read those stories who are you more likely to feel sympathy for? What effect does that have? I suppose I suppose it takes you're obviously more likely to feel sympathy for someone who feels as if they have absolutely no power but realistically if you are being attacked by anyone you never have any power like it doesn't make any difference whether or not you are someone who would typically be considered promiscuous or someone who wasn't because either way we should give all victims like how does your sexual activity relate to whether you're going to be a victim or not? I think that's a really old concept. I think this is it's about social control like we want to have like the idea is that you want the traditional women woman to still exist and this is why you know I think it's really important that we push back against these sort of narratives with like feminism and things these days and why it's so important that we do have you know feminist sociologists such as Sulis who are like pointing out that these things still exist and that we need to be conscious of them when looking at media articles. Linking to that though like the idea of innocence and using that as like a kind of ideal victim thing it's like well innocence is tied with children but according to the Worldwide Organization 176,000 homicides occur among young people and like the youth which is 15 to 29 that's 37 percent of the total number of homicides globally like each year and like the media don't really speak about that you know like that is a crazy number and sorry that is a crazy number and could we see this as through the normalization of violent video games and like how children growing up with the media is this kind of the reasoning behind it can we see this because of the media or can we relate it to something else it's a bit it's a bit of an odd topic but I think it's definitely one that needs to be spoken about a lot more in society. I think the media really affects young people I mean for example this idea of toxic masculinity wait can we stop sex yeah did we do the toxic masculinity section um we've got it's not toxic masculinity but I've got like pressure to be a man yeah should we just quickly record that bit I've literally got a script for it I'm just gonna read this out okay you you go ahead and do and then we need to move on to moral panic yeah I was just thinking that and I think we're gonna have to cut some of this out we are yeah we're gonna have to cut this out so if you do then moral panic and then we can link it all together back to hot boys there all right I'm just gonna do this toxic masculinity bit we are okay we are going in five four three so there's this type of debate right I just think that this idea of like toxic masculinity is perpetuated by the media and in your case in particular I mean he was rejected and yes I forgot about that element it was the idea of she had a bag wasn't it and he wanted to give his ex-girlfriend flowers and he was rejected and he was scorned in that way which is ridiculous but I just think that the media perpetuates this idea of being a man and young men believe that they need to assert dominance over women of course not all young men but that is being perpetuated by the media so in your case she rejected his flowers and he was embarrassed and I was looking at this study that was done in Greater Manchester recently and it was about how the media plays a massive part in perpetuating this as I've just said and it's the idea that although these like gender stereotypes predate social media social media is exaggerating it as it's kind of creating this whole hard man masculine image and this rhetoric about what it means to be a man and just a quote from this article there's a quote says throughout our research we had young males using a script about becoming a man that says do not express any emotions but aggression reject anything feminine and see retaliation as strength so there's this this is so related to the Ellie Ann and I'm Kate yeah 100% as we see like this man with a bruised ego retaliating and that's like the pressure to be a man like social media I think we can all agree has intensified the pressure of being a man I think the idea of like before social media men being able to like cool off and not having they're around it 24 7 I think this is amongst to be fair everyone like the idea that they were able to log off distress but now the idea of being a man is associated with being aggressive and violent and I think we can all kind of agree young women are often the victim of the fight of being a man and I think the masculinity masculinity image pressure really I think in our generation through social media is highlighted and TV like shows like top boy and yeah all these other things the media moral panic around top boy and the idea of boys this age are watching and integrating that lifestyle into their own lives it's just not suitable for the people that are watching it and also like the illegal lifestyle that is being portrayed to them it's influential and detrimental to young people's life being sensationalized exactly it's being so highly thought of in the media and it's such a conversation of have you watched have you watched the episode where blah blah blah and it's just a bit it's a bit much really for these age groups and age demographics to be getting so normalized with these lifestyles which aren't sustainable legal lifestyles you know I think it's um the idea that we see so much media from so many different media sources whether that be tv and movies stuff like top boy or whether that be through you know more traditional media like the news or news tv and things like that it does stir up what stanley cohen would term moral panics because and I think we've all experienced that ourselves like when we think of cases such as a desire alina case or the elaine and um elliott and um case um like we definitely are conscious of these things like for example zara alina was literally walking home from um from a club when she was raped and murdered and I think that us four of us being women sat here I imagine that all of us at some point or another if not every time has felt conscious about the fact that we could be in danger or the feeling of that we are in danger if we're by ourselves whereas I think we all know that like our male counterparts don't feel that way I mean my I live with three boys and they always offer to walk me places and I would never do the same for them because they feel safe and I know they feel safe but we said like we said statistically yes men are attacked they're often more involved in violence and it's crazy that we actually feel so unsafe and yet we're actually more unsafe in our own home exactly exactly especially the idea of like women crossing the street if a man's walking behind I'm a subject that I always if I know that there's some man walking behind me I'm if I don't know them I cross the road and it's just nature now it's not just sorry just say about that being unsafe in your own homes not less that's just statistically like of course it's all subject it's the idea that like most rape cases happen like you said earlier six or seven six out of seven happen by someone you know it's normally in your home or someone else's home it's not on the street it's not by these strangers so we cross the roads because they're behind us as realistically I think it's really interesting to point out though that I think the fact that we feel these things are is the media stirring up moral panics so for example yeah a BBC article that I found relating to the Zara Lina case referred to Jordan McSweeney multiple times as a danger to any woman and obviously that's trying to instill fear in women that we should it's not just trying to control it's working I think we can all say that yeah to be told don't walk home alone don't yeah you know don't wear outfits that are gonna all by the mail gave me a hundred percent I mean Madeleine like if you were walking home in joggers and a hoodie would you feel safer for example if you were wearing a short skirt and a crop top I think nowadays especially like women's fashion has kind of become that more slouchy thing because they're told if you wear a skirt if you if you dare wear a skirt and a crop top out you're asking for it's the idea of asking for it it's just and in how many of these news stories do they describe what the person was wearing oh my god which is not actually relevant it's not as if it has no relevance to the idea of like what someone is planning especially in your case like he was looking to do that it doesn't matter what they were wearing the idea is it could have been anyone it was any woman who happened to be there at that point it would have absolutely no relevance what she was wearing yeah and it's because of I think you know you were talking about that being a man article and stuff like that is because of the idea that you know be aggressive aggression and that moral kind of thing created has changed the way that we about how I behave I think there was a I read somewhere I'm going to pause because I need this example yeah we but we've got to add a conclusion and I had one yeah okay I think we have to separate the two cases more like we were talking about yeah but I we're not going to be able to cut it like that but at the end of the day it's been more conversational okay we literally did like 45 minutes of talking we've got so much content okay and we haven't concluded but we'll add we have yeah we'll have to add the conclusion the point I was going to make and I can't find it is um is it still recording it probably is guys I'm just going to drop in there so you can hear me um you do need to sort of like work out what how you're going to close this out yeah as you close out and so so say well thanks for listening to our podcast thank you to my uh my guests today that sort of thing okay so you can add that on to the end so we've literally got a few minutes left yeah so have a think about how you're gonna do let me just say my one point where because we can just like attach that onto the end like where is this right what's the point it's the fit thingy I need a reference for that what what fear of great keeps women inside um I've literally got it in yeah no it was um um is it abram yeah right I think I'm just gonna say that I mean I was reading this article from abram and she said fear of rape keeps women inside it's actually controlling our behavior and I think that's mad which is absolutely crazy I think in both of these cases we can see that the fear is being installed even more which I guess the whole time we've kind of been speaking about but yeah so that's kind of a good conversation yeah it's a really interesting conversation yeah um I just want to thank my guests for coming on today Madeleine and Sasha thank you for having us it's been amazing to discuss our point of views about crime in the media yeah and thank you very much to you and Naj as well yeah you've been amazing host thank you for having us no problem all right guys we'll see you next week bye okay I feel like that I feel like that was all right I feel like that was good yeah it was too much but we were pressing bits that we need in there in the we just have to add it in yeah are you happy with everything you've recorded you're happy with the closeout are you happy with the closeout um I think so you went straight into giggles mind oh gosh yeah you could really do with it being should we do again do an alternate okay all right thanks for coming guys I just want to say thank you to my guests Madeleine and Sasha it's been lovely and I can't believe how much we were able to talk about yeah thank you thanks so much we've had a really interesting discussion yeah it's been really interesting thanks for having us on and thank you to you too as well you've been such amazing hosts you're really good thank you thank you all right guys thank you for listening to the crime stories podcast uh bye see you later see you next week right is that okay I was not right and we're out amazing thank you you have to try and curb curb chatting straight away if you need to leave a gap but anyway all good thank you thanks thank you