Looking for Laura

Book excerpt: As featured on the BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine Show. David Wilson is one of the 1st’s best-known and most innovative criminologists. An ‘insider’ view of the construction of a news agenda for crime and punishment. This superb read from Professor David Wilson looks at how the “news” agenda for crime and punishment is constructed. It also contains analysis of media stereotypes, narratives and depictions together with insights connecting these to real life. Media portrayals set the agenda for public discourse and popular debate. Academics in their ‘ivory towers’, professionals and other crime experts ignore this at the risk of seeing their more informed understandings side lined. The book builds on the author’s experiences of covering high profile cases and populist issues for TV, radio, newspapers and other media. It also contains telling inside accounts of police-media relations at murder scenes in Gloucester, Soham, Whitehaven, Rothbury and Ipswich. A must in grasping the equally ‘hot topic’ of Public Criminology With a Foreword by the award-winning investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre.