Right to a fair trial: could hard news reports influence jurors?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The “trial by media” phenomenon that describes the media frenzy accompanying a high-profile court case, and that may be at odds with a defendant’s right to a fair trial by an impartial jury, has been widely researched. The aim of this project is consequently to investigate whether jurors could be influenced by their readings of the media in trials receiving less media attention. Using the systemic functional linguistics framework, this study uses a murder trial held in Sydney, Australia, and contrasts the crime story, as described in the court’s Decision, with an article published in the Daily Telegraph at the time of the offender’s arrest. The aim is to explore whether the jurors who were appointed to this trial could have been affected by their reading of the article. The findings highlight the ways in which the news report is made persuasive through a range of features, such as its ideational structure, rhetorical organisation, use of circumstantial details, transitivity and agency patterns, as well as the ways in which the journalists seek to involve their readership through their use of attitudinal meanings and engagement, as well as their differentiated use of the crime participants’ names.