True Crime Research Project
150 points
Description:
Your objective is to research a criminal murder case concerning an infamous crime committed in the past 50 years. You are expected to use proper research protocol in every way, including writing style and MLA annotation of sources. This project asks you to trace the narrative of a true crime case through four levels of media coverage.
1. a local newspaper or television report
2. a newspaper with national circulation (for example, The New York Times, The
Washington Post, The Los-Angeles Times)
3. a printed or online magazine with national circulation, online blog, or true-crime
novel
4. a national television news broadcast (for example, The CBS Evening News, 360 with
Anderson Cooper, CNN), news magazine ―documentary program (such as Dateline: NBC, ABC‘s Primetime, CBS‘ 48 Hours Mystery, A&E‘s American Justice), or made-for-TV docudrama.
Retrace the presentation of your case through these four outlets. Concentrate your analysis on how specific evidence is found, discussed, analyzed, and displayed as the case shifts representational venues.
Purpose:
Your goal as a writer is not to categorize one source as true and the others as false; treat all with equal suspicion regarding their subjectivity. Your paper should present an analysis of how the “story” of murder may change over time as a case changes news venues (local to national to televised to online).
You may choose different points in a case’s timeline and connect those with different venues of coverage. You could choose one point in the case (initial report, indictment, trial date, or verdict) and explore that moment’s reportage across the four venues.
For example, you might consider if the local news reporting the crime focused more on the safety of the population whereas the national news might focus more on the dramatic aspects of the crime to sell papers. Still online sources might provide opinions and conspiracy theories while somehow celebrating the criminal, while true crime novels might add elements of fiction. As you can see, the story of the crime shifts from venue to venue.
Follow this format when preparing your written report:
• Discuss all relevant details/collected evidence of the crime
• Explain how the media played a role in the criminal case – what did each different media venue focus on?
• Clearly describe the eventual outcome of the case (if it is unsolved, discuss where it is currently).
• Use MLA citation format for all resources
Basic Requirements:
You should find a minimum of 8 sources and integrate at least six of those into your final paper. All sources must be credible.
You are welcome to use Wikipedia as a starting point for your crime; however, it cannot be a source in the essay. It is my advice that you begin with national searches first so you can see how far the coverage of the case reached. Then start searching back to the more local level. Optimally, you want to find a case that gives you a mix of published print, online, and television texts to analyze, which is why we are keeping our focus from the 1950’s to the present day.
The final paper should be at least 4-5 pages in length (this does not include the Works Cited page.)
The topic chosen is Pablo Escobar, representing the case against him. Must include this source:
—. “Pablo Escobar, Drug Baron: His Surrender, Imprisonment, and Escape | Office of JusticePrograms.” U.S. Department of Justice, 1996,www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/pablo-escobar-drug-baron-his-surrender-imprisonment-and-escape.
Thompson, David P. “Pablo Escobar, Drug Baron: His Surrender, Imprisonment, and Escape.”Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, vol. 19, no. 1, 1996, pp. 55–91. Crossref,doi:10.1080/10576109608435996
