Giving Compass' Take:

· Writing for The Marshall Project, Carroll Bogert analyzes what we've learned since the Central Park jogger case and why the media needs to change how it reports on crimes and suspects.

· What role does philanthropy play in changing how media portrays crime? 

· Read more about the influence of media and solution journalism.

On April 21, 1989, the New York Daily News ran a story about a young investment banker who was badly beaten and repeatedly raped while jogging in Central Park. Its headline, “Wolf Pack’s Prey,” described how the woman was “left for dead by a wolf pack of more than dozen young teenagers.” News stories about the crime appeared in every major media outlet and made the term “wilding” part of the national lexicon. The stories rarely described the perpetrators as "alleged."

The trouble was, the “pack” wasn’t responsible for the attack, although five young men arrested soon thereafter were convicted of the crime and served between six and 13 years. In 2002, they were exonerated after a convicted rapist confessed to having raped the woman and police matched his DNA to the crime scene.

The story of these five young men of color is again in the news because of Ava DuVernay’s Netflix series, “When They See Us,” which focuses on the experiences of the boys who were wrongly accused. For media outlets, the series, which is available for streaming on May 31, provides a good opportunity to examine how news coverage has contributed to wrongful convictions and, more generally, to decades of draconian criminal justice policy.

Read the full article about how media covers crime by Carroll Bogert at The Marshall Project.