Abstract
In the reporting of the court case, the trial and the public hanging, the news mainly engaged with the invariant civil concern of legitimacy and it was here that the press was at its most undecided and changeable. Ultimately though, it emphasised the legitimacy, fairness and civil nature of English authority, law and justice and rejected the need for any major structural changes. Simultaneously, the news reporting undermined the efforts of the detectives by engaging in its own speculation about the case, condemning the defendant as the murderer before his trial. In its fragmentary and confusing coverage, the press protected existing inequalities and did not meaningfully scrutinise the biases in the processes of authority, law and justice.
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Harrison, J. (2019). The Reporting of the Murder and the Invariant Civil Concern of Legitimacy. In: The Civil Power of the News. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19381-2_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19381-2_7
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