4 research outputs found
Covering the Condemned: An examination of changes in North Carolina capital punishment coverage before and after the 2006 moratorium
North Carolina has not carried out an execution since 2006 because a series of
legal and policy hurdles led to a de facto death penalty moratorium. Despite efforts by the
Republican General Assembly to restart capital punishment, executions remain on hold
indefinitely. There is more than a century of evidence suggesting newspaper coverage
influences death penalty policy. More recent scholarship established connections between
certain frames and modes of coverage and public death penalty support. My study
entailed analyzing a representative sample of 16 years of death penalty articles in four of
North Carolina’s highest circulation newspapers to examine how the moratorium
impacted coverage. I used a scoring scheme to calculate how much prominence death
penalty coverage received pre- and post-moratorium, as indicated by article placement,
word count and photograph and graphic inclusion. I also studied source choices and
stances expressed by those sources, the inclusion of “innocence frames” and whether
articles cited the death penalty’s alternative punishment: life without parole. I found that
coverage has steadily declined since 2001 but dropped precipitously after the moratorium
came into effect. My findings also demonstrated how articles post-moratorium received
less prominence while references to innocence and life without parole trended downward.
In sum, the moratorium had a profound impact on the amount of death penalty
information newspaper readers receive. Future research should examine death penalty
coverage in other states to help researchers develop a deeper understanding for how legal
and policy developments impact widely disseminated information about this policy topic.Bachelor of Art