Abstract
In November 1991, at Leicester Crown Court, Frank Beck was sentenced to five life terms and twenty-four years' imprisonment for sexual abuse during his work as a residential social worker. His activities resulted in four official reports. Given the scale of his wrong-doing, surely a torrent of sensational coverage would have been predicted at every stage of these events? Yet neither the trial nor the official reports received high profile press treatment. This relative silence about a major criminal episode with fundamental policy implications graphically illustrates the social construction of news. It is first described, and then analysed in terms of the daily practices, the political preoccupations, and the framing devices that constitute ‘news’ in UK national newspapers.
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