Beyond the ‘Monster’: Rethinking True Crime Journalism in an Era of Simplification

Main Facts

For decades, the true crime genre has relied on a reliable, highly lucrative narrative device: the "monster." Whether applied explicitly through sensational headlines or implied through breathless framing, labeling perpetrators as inhuman anomalies has served as an extraordinarily efficient storytelling tool for newsrooms worldwide. However, a growing cohort of journalists, criminologists, and media ethicists are arguing that this impulse toward "monsterfication" comes at a steep price. By reducing complex human beings and systemic failures into neat, cartoonish vectors of pure evil, the media sacrifices depth, obscures the pathways to prevention, and risks compounding miscarriages of justice.

The consequences of this cultural addiction are far-reaching. When veteran crime journalists—such as Stephen Wright, who spent 33 years covering the rounds for the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday—look back at decades of shorthand labeling, they often find a self-perpetuating ecosystem. Wright famously used the press-coined moniker "the beast of Birkenhead" even when reporting on the likely wrongful conviction of Peter Sullivan, who was imprisoned for life for the 1986 murder of Diane Sindall before doubts emerged decades later. Reflecting on that cultural conditioning, Wright admitted: "I’ve never really thought about that. This is the culture I’ve been brought up in… This is how we do it in the UK."

This reflexive dehumanization offers audiences a comforting moral boundary: they are evil, and we are not. Yet, critics argue that true crime coverage has tilted so far toward emotional personalization and moral outrage that it largely bypasses institutional failures, mental health contexts, and the multifaceted environments that foster harm.

Chronology and Evolution of Crime Reporting

To understand how modern journalism became so reliant on the monster frame, it is necessary to examine how crime reporting has shifted over the past century:

• Mid-to-Late 20th Century: Crime reporting primarily anchored itself in the mechanics of the criminal justice system—courts, police procedures, trials, and the weighing of evidence. While sensationalism existed, the structural apparatus of the state remained the focal point.
• The 2000s (The Turn Toward the Personal): Seminal research by media historian Dr. Claire Wardle in 2007 revealed a profound pivot in UK newspapers covering child murders. Coverage became overwhelmingly "personal," focusing intensely on victims’ families, public grief, and society’s emotional reactions rather than systemic checks and balances. Dr. Wardle noted that the press demonstrated "little tolerance for attempts to contextualise these offenders."
• The 1990s–2015 (The Construction of the Predator): A subsequent 2018 study by Rebecca A. DiBennardo, analyzing 323 Los Angeles Times articles over a 25-year span, demonstrated how sexual predator coverage heavily emphasized child victims to construct offenders as uniformly predatory and uniquely deserving of extreme, unyielding punishment.
• The Digital True Crime Boom (Present Day): With the proliferation of podcasts, streaming documentaries, and click-driven digital journalism, crime narratives have exploded in popularity. Line Vaaben, an editor at the Danish newspaper Politiken, notes the psychological appeal: "Most of us live very boring lives, so true crime is like a mental roller coaster for most of us: exciting, but safe."
• 2025 and Beyond: A shifting counter-movement emerges. Investigative journalists, drawing on empirical research from forensic interviewing, psychology, and trauma-informed care, begin formulating toolkits to help reporters conduct humane interviews and publish nuanced, context-rich stories that reject lazy demonization without sacrificing accountability.

Supporting Data and Academic Insights

The academic literature surrounding media framing and offender profiling highlights a clear disconnect between what drives digital engagement and what serves public safety.

Research consistently demonstrates that the "monster" label creates confirmation traps, fuels moral panics, and encourages vigilantism. By framing harmful behavior as something exclusively committed by people fundamentally disconnected from ordinary human psychology, society obscures the realities of grooming, trauma, mental deterioration, and social isolation.

Furthermore, empirical studies on police and investigative interviewing—such as the ORBIT framework developed by Laurence and Emily Alison, and John Birtchnell’s Interpersonal Octagon—show that adversarial, heavy-handed, or dehumanizing approaches yield poorer information. Just as coercive police tactics historically led to false confessions and wrongful convictions, aggressive and reductive journalistic practices narrow the scope of inquiry, alienate sources, and produce flattened, unreliable accounts of complex crimes.

As psychologist Nadja Heym points out, society holds a stake in understanding rather than simply ostracizing offenders: "If you wish to improve society as a whole, the moral responsibility is that you should be rehabilitating these criminals." Heym emphasizes that moving away from pure monsterfication does not mean stripping away moral judgment, but rather examining events from an angle that permits long-term prevention.

Official Responses and Institutional Perspectives

Media organizations and press watchdogs are slowly confronting the psychological toll of sensationalized crime reporting—both on the public and on the reporters themselves.

Protecting the Journalist

The exposure to extreme violence, online abuse networks, and graphic material exacts a severe toll on newsrooms. Norwegian journalist Annemarte Moland faced her personal breaking point while investigating the notorious "764" network—a digital ecosystem that coerces vulnerable minors into extreme self-harm and suicide.

"I have reported on stories about pedophiles, abusers, and suicide among teenage girls," Moland shared. "When I started investigating 764, I met myself at the door." In response, Aftenposten established strict operational guardrails: investigators work in pairs, view graphic material on small screens with audio muted, impose strict time caps on exposure, and undergo mandatory debriefings.

Similarly, Elin Floberghagen—who led the Norwegian Press Association’s 2024 commission investigating the media’s role in the wrongful conviction of Viggo Kristiansen—recommends that newsrooms appoint a designated "cold brain." This editorial devil’s advocate maintains structural distance from the emotional momentum of a breaking story, asking critical questions and evaluating editorial premises with fresh eyes.

The Evolving Perspective of Perpetrators

Insight into the impact of media framing also comes from those on the inside. Benjamin Faulkner, a 35-year-old Canadian serving a life sentence in Arizona for assaulting a child and moderating a massive online repository of child sexual abuse material, was initially furious when he heard Hunting Warhead—a podcast detailing his case produced by Daemon Fairless and journalist colleagues. He complained that it failed to capture his perspective.

Years later, however, Faulkner acknowledged a paradoxical shift: hearing the podcast allowed him to view himself from the outside, recognizing how society perceived him and reevaluating his own actions. Reflecting on accountability, Faulkner noted: "I deserve to be here because I hurt people. I chose to do what I did. It’s a choice I have to take responsibility for." He added that true rehabilitation requires open discourse: "If you ever want a person to learn from their mistakes… it’s important to talk openly. Let’s talk about what happened and why. How do we fix it for next time?"

Implications for the Future of Journalism

Abandoning the crutch of monsterfication does not mean abandoning moral clarity, nor does it mean shielding violent actors from the legal consequences of their actions. An act can be roundly, unequivocally condemned without reducing the human being who committed it into a mythical beast.

Implementing a humane interviewing framework—built upon rapport-building, trauma-informed practices, and the avoidance of reductive labels—demands more time, emotional labor, and editorial rigor from newsrooms. It challenges the instantaneous gratification of the click economy and forces journalists to navigate uncomfortable grey areas.

Yet, as media critics argue, the alternative is a feedback loop of sensationalism that leaves society less informed about how harm actually develops, and therefore less equipped to prevent it. News is fundamentally a conversation an audience has with itself about the nature of the world, human agency, and shared morality. When journalists bypass this responsibility by stamping a simple "monster" label on complex social pathologies, they shut down that internal dialogue. By offering truth, context, and unflinching complexity instead, journalism can provide the tools necessary for a deeper, safer, and far more useful public understanding.