Question

how does the media effect/contribute to wrongful convictions?!

Answer 1

Once upon a time, we only had “the media,” but the emergence of social media, in addition to mainstream media, has changed that. For innocent prisoners, social media has been a blessing. Why? While the mainstream media drags its feet in covering cases of wrongful conviction — often waiting until a conviction has already been overturned before bringing the case to the public’s attention — social media users will speak out about a prisoner’s innocence much sooner. Even for those innocent prisoners who obtain adequate representation and are successfully exonerated, the average time spent waiting in prison is between 13 and 15 years.

The media can play an integral part in bringing our injustice to society’s attention. When the press tells our stories and shows how the judicial system failed us, it sheds light on the people responsible for our suffering. Corrupt officials’ worst nightmare is seeing their name in tomorrow’s headlines. In many cases, brave investigative reporters have generated interest in prisoners’ innocence, helping them to obtain investigations, new trials, and exonerations.

But the majority of the time, the mainstream media will not touch a claim of innocence by prisoners who can show evidence of our innocence unless we are first granted a new trial, DNA excludes us, or we were just exonerated. That’s when they come. The media really do not know how much damage they do by failing to report solid information of a prisoner’s innocence.