The Scarman Report, the Macpherson Report and the Media: How Newspapers Respond to Race-centred Social Policy Interventions

Abstract

This paper is concerned with tracking the shifts in media discourses surrounding issues of race and social policy interventions through an examination of the newspaper media responses to the Brixton Inquiry and Scarman Report in 1982 and the Lawrence Inquiry and Macpherson Report that appeared eighteen years later in 1999. Brought about by two very different sets of historical events, albeit events which shared certain common features, this paper argues that the Scarman and Macpherson Reports have framed the changing story of 'race relations' in Britain in the last quarter of the twentieth century. While there have, inevitably, been comparisons between the content of the two Reports there has not been a comparative focus on the media reception of the findings and recommendations of the Inquiries. Using written and visual media text from five newspapers the paper seeks to map the extent to which media narratives around both race and race related policy-making have shifted during the course of almost two decades. The paper questions the boundaries of any such changes and examines what remains unchanged.

Researching Up? Interviews, Emotionality and Policy-Making Elites

“…We have argued that the idea of an emotional relationship between policy-makers and the policy documents they shape and/or author is still one of which we know remarkably little, and this is particularly so in relation to those policy-makers who are politically independent of governments or formal political parties. As we have argued previously (Neal, 2003;Neal, 2004, 2007), reports from deliberative Commissions and 'crisis event' public inquiries tend to have a particularly high profile as they enter and are critically scrutinised in the 24/7 mediatised public sphere. What our fieldwork narrative yields are glimpses into the political difficulties and potentially traumatic personal costs of being in this public sphere (see McLaughlin and Neal, 2007, for a detailed examination of this) as well as glimpses of the connections and attachments between policy-makers, policy communities and policy documents.…”

The Reporting Trajectories of Top Homicide Cases in the Media: A Case Study of The Times

“…However, while the murder of Stephen Lawrence was reported in The Times and other newspapers from the outset, the 'primary incident' that attracted most media attention was a developing concern that institutional racism within the police prevented progress being made on the case. The Stephen Lawrence case became a 'mega-case', not because of the intrinsic qualities of the homicide which, sadly, were like several others, but because it became part of this wider societal agenda on racial discrimination and the police (see McLaughlin and Murji 1999;Neal 2003). This case unexpectedly linked in with wider societal issues that are both sensitive and were only just beginning to be addressed.…”

The “red door” controversy—Middlesbrough's asylum seekers and the discursive politics of racism

“…This sample is not intended to be representative of the press as a whole, but instead offers a snapshot of how this news event was constructed by the Times and rearticulated by GazetteLive, providing a local perspective on a national (and international) news story. Though this is a small sample, Vautier () has highlighted the advantages of focusing on specific case studies in which “specificity is central to the attempt to unravel how [a] particular discursive performance operates, the assumptions invoked and the significance of responses from a range of participants.”(Vautier, ) Furthermore, Neal () has suggested that the ever‐shifting nature of racist discourse necessitates research that examines “the significance of the political moment” such as immediate responses to breaking news.…”