CBA Record April-May 2018

observed that the burgeoning violence and crime in the Chicago demonstrated how the neighbor-woman’s words proved to be prophetic. This woman’s shaming haunted him over time and helped to refocus his observations about how newsroom assign- ments were made and how media coverage was driven by the sensational nature of murder, often making murders the lead story for the evening news. Jordan then reflects on how covering news in Chicago, a national news market, was 180 degrees different from the local news issues that had served as his training ground for news coverage from the Nash- ville, TNmarket where he began his career. He writes about how the extensive amount of crime and violence affects politics and police in the city. Another powerful element of the book is Jordan’s reflection on the transforma- tive technological evolution of media coverage. At the beginning of his career, Jordan recalls the heavy cameras. He also recounts that the timing of the news cycles controlled the producers’ ability to choose assignments to get stories on air. But in recent years, however, the proliferation of microchips and apps has eliminated any limitations for news producers and newsroom assignment editors in making decisions about crime and violence cover- age in neighborhoods. Instead, news teams are now challenged by a 24/7 news cycle, multiple news outlets, and citizen report- ers and photographers who offer content and sometimes compete with network employees to “ break” news stories. This revolution in spontaneous crime story coverage has given new challenges to police in the management of violence prevention by gangs and the on-site handling of crimes by law enforcement. Jordan’s book will emerge as a treatise to be used in criminal law seminars, and will expand a plethora of tools to train lawyers and law enforcement professionals about community engagement related to murders

SUMMARY JUDGMENTS

REVIEWS, REVIEWS, REVIEWS!

The Making of a TV Crime Story

of how technology and social media have changed news reporting, Jordan gives us an insider’s look at how crime news is collected and how area producers make story assignments. With no holds barred, Jordan makes pointed observations about how race is intertwined in a TV producer’s decisions about Chicago media coverage of murders and the competitive drive for coveted station ratings. The book begins with a story about how Jordan was assigned in 1994 to cover a major story about former Congressman Mel Reynolds. Jordan recounts how he experienced a career-altering event while he waited to do his live shot on air. He tells us that he was blindsided a by an elderly black woman, who was a neighbor of Reynolds, standing nearby watching what was going on with all the media present outside her home. She politely asked Jordan about why the media was there, but upon learn- ing the reason for the full complement of media networks, called Jordan out about why his crew was covering that particular story. The woman asserted that the story of real concern to the city’s communities and media should have been about a rash of murders that had occurred a bit earlier in the week in her neighborhood. By his own admission, Jordan dismissed the woman’s comments at the time, but she was not to be deterred. She told him “I am ashamed of you,” noting that his station’s disregard of the terror of community violence was only being ignored because the murders did not involve any high profile people. As Jordan began his research for his book in the years that followed, he

Murder in the News, an Inside Look at How Television Covers Crime By Robert H. Jordan Penguin Random House, 2017

Reviewed by Nina Fain A s 2018 began, we were introduced to Robert H. Jordan Jr.’s book “Murder in the News, an Inside Look at How Television Covers Crime. Jordan, a former anchor and reporter at WGNTele- vision in Chicago, was a news icon. Now as an author, he has written a riveting account of his professional career and its confluence with the radical transformation of how crime is covered in national newsrooms. As an eyewitness to the dramatic impact Nina Fain administers the Janet SugermanSchirn Family Trust and is a member of the CBA Record Editorial Board.

56 APRIL/MAY 2018