The News Values of Court Reporting

Reporting the courts on behalf of the public is one of the traditional tasks of local newspapers. Yet in the UK, twin financial crises affecting both the local media market and the criminal justice system have led to concerns over the sustainability of court reporting. Furthermore, the practice of reporting to the courts has arguably been under-explored, especially when set against media coverage of crime generally. This article seeks to establish insights into the quality and quantity of contemporary court reporting in the UK’s local press. It analyses content published on the websites of six prominent daily newspapers, using Steve Chibnall’s 1977 work on crime news values as a framework. The article finds that daily court coverage remains widespread, especially at key titles owned by the UK’s largest newspaper publisher, Reach, potentially challenging narratives around the decline of public interest journalism in the local press. It also develops a list of the news values of court reporting, as distinct from crime reporting, for the first time.