Newspapers sensationalising the Noritta trial

Noritta Samsudin’s murder trial has thrown up some challenging issues. But they can hardly be considered new. Perhaps not surprisingly then, the media have come under some heavy fire for sensationalising details of Noritta’s alleged sexual behaviour that came out of the trial. Their critics include some concerned citizens, woman’s groups like All Women’s Action Society (Awam), and Information Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir (who said he received many complaints from the public).

But how should the trial be covered? How much of the sexual details should be presented and in what way?

Critics generally deplored the media for sensationalising the coverage, saying the attention given to sexual details was to sell more papers or boost TV ratings. Sex sells and the media have been to known to make use of it to get audience in order to pocket larger advertising revenue. Many critics wanted the media to stop and consider what the focus on Noritta’s alleged sex life has been doing to Noritta’s parents and asked them to temper their coverage with respect for them.

Some also thought it was simply wrong of the media to cover Noritta’s alleged sexual behaviour in graphic details and suggested that a summary of all that would suffice since the focus should be on her murder. Yet another complaint was that media emphasis on her alleged sexual behaviour suggested Noritta was a slut and possibly deserved what she got.

On the other hand, some, including people in the media (e.g. Rehman Rashid in his “Midweek” column on 2 June in the New Straits Times), argued that media are merely giving the public whatever that came out of the court. Why blame the media as messenger then? If anyone is to be blamed, it should be the lawyers and the judge at the trial. The public, too, could be blamed as they appeared attracted to the sexual elements of the trial. The media merely gave what they wanted.

A way to grasp the controversy better is to examine it in its context, starting with how the media initially covered the trial that got under way sometime in mid-May.

Going by The Star and New Straits Times, for example, it was clear that they were eager to go to town with the story. On 21 May, barely a week after the trial got underway, NST front-paged the story and accompanied it with the headline “Noritta had sex with more than one person before death, court told”. While The Star did not front-page it, its headline was even more sensationalistic, “Noritta sexually active, possibly kinky”.

This news slant upset some citizens as well as Awam and clearly shows the media are not merely messengers. What part of the Noritta story to play up, what words were chosen for the headlines, where the story was placed (front page or an inside page), how much space the story took up, etc all involved editorial decisions. And such decisions belie the role of the press as merely a conduit of information because they directly or indirectly affect the story. In other words, how a story is told colours the story itself.

Following complaints from Awam and some members of the public, the English papers appeared to have toned down their coverage somewhat. NST, The Star and theSun have not frontpaged the Noritta trial since then. The Malay Mail, however, appeared eager to frontpage it every day of the trial if possible. It also has devoted a lot more space to the story. This tabloid has been living up to the sensationalism for which sleazy tabloids in the West, such as those in London, are particularly known.

So, only the morning English dailies appeared to have responded to the criticism of their initial coverage by taking the story out of the front page. But the headlines in the morning papers have not changed much, if at all. For example, on 2 June, the headline in the NST was “Accused had sex twice with victim”. The content of their reporting remains as graphic in depicting Noritta’s alleged sexual behaviour. Could the papers do more?
Insofar as the headlines are concerned, there is still room for toning them down. For example, why not “Accused had sex with victim”. If the papers are concerned about losing readers through a more sober approach, it is misplaced. At this stage of the trial, it is doubtful readers still need to be titillated by sexual details to continue to read.

What about the content of the reports? Here, the papers have often adopted the Q&A approach with reporters faithfully reproducing the words of the lawyers’ in their questioning and of the witnesses’ in answering. In this sense, the reporters can be considered as messengers, merely giving the public whatever comes out of the trial.

Critics, as mentioned earlier, argued that the media should temper their reporting out of empathy or respect for Noritta’s parents. But it is really not fair to ask that of reporters if they are merely acting as messengers through their Q&A approach. After all, the trial is open to the public and many people who were there would be exposed to all that was said in court itself. But no one is telling the lawyers to cease or tone down their sexually graphic line of questioning.

That said, the print media, however, have not given the public only what was said in court. They could still be more considerate in the area of the headlines. A sensational headline does have a way of adding to the coverage some dimensions that cannot simply be attributed to whatever that came out of court.

Another troubling area is that the newspaper have been offering headlines and stories as though Noritta was already found guilty of all the sexual behaviour. They may claim they were merely reporting what was said by the lawyers and witnesses, but that is precisely the point: they are not the lawyers and witnesses.

Thus would it not be proper to use the word “alleged”, as in Noritta’s “alleged” sexual behaviour? Such an omission contributes unfairly to the depiction of Noritta - all the more so since she obviously cannot defend herself or give her side of the story. Perhaps that is one factor explaining why critics argued that media coverage already made Noritta into a slut and so implied that she must have deserved her fate.