Criminal Justice and Support for the "Heroes"
A look at one week of broadcast television
Shortly after starting this newsletter, I wrote a series of nine posts on the nature and challenges of the criminal justice system in America. In the first of those posts, I explored the ways in which entertainment culture shapes our thinking about law enforcement, criminals, bad actors, and justice.
It’s still a topic of great interest to me. In spite of daily reports of police misbehavior in my local paper and on social media, Americans still have great faith in law enforcement. Some of that is a result of police-friendly news stories and work by police unions. But I’d argue that much of it is a result of the halo effect created by scripted television, especially on the traditional broadcast channels. The halo that attaches to generic law enforcement personnel allows a distinction between the “good guys” and the “bad apples”.
Last summer, Tom Nichols wrote in The Atlantic about his love for vintage television.1 This piece discusses the role of the independent private detective (Mannix, Cannon, Barnaby Jones) that was dominant in a particular period in our television viewing.
But as I reflect on what’s on television today, it seems that the role models have shifted significantly. So yesterday I decided to do a quick research project. Since my local paper includes the daily viewing grid, I was able to construct a full schedule for the four major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX) for the seven days from January 6 to January 12, 2023. There are a total of 77 hours of broadcast time considered.2
There were some anomalies in the week I chose. ABC had shown The Lion King on Sunday night and NBC had the Golden Globes on Tuesday. So my analysis is slightly skewed relative to what those networks would have shown that night.
Nevertheless, I was able to code the various programs relatively easily. The major categories were crime/law (NCIS+, CSI, Law and Order+, FBI+, etc.), medical (Chicago Med, The Resident), rescue (e.g., Alert, Fire Country), Sports (NFL, WWE), Reality, Competition, Situation Comedy, Game Shows, and a few outliers — Fantasy Island (that I classified as a drama), Quantum Leap (Science Fiction), Will Trent (a new spy show), and So Help Me Todd (a comic drama that is the only defense attorney show on television). There was also a news special and two true crime reports (Dateline and 48 Hours).
With all of that detail, here is what I found:
It is clear that crime and law enforcement programming dominates the pie chart, making up over a quarter of viewing hours. When one adds the True Crime reports, the rescue shows, and the brave medical personnel shows, you get just under 40% of all available programming. Is it any wonder that those who watch a lot of television have a favorable view of law enforcement and other first responders?
The patterns become even more stark when we look at the four networks individually. This chart only includes programming actually shown. If, for example, CBS has no reality shows, it doesn’t show up in their column. This time the categories show up in number of hours of programming.
ABC appears to have the most balance between the various categories of shows and the most comedies of any network. CBS is clearly crime all the time3 — That’s over 2 hours per evening out of the prime time period. NBC is dominated by their Wednesday Chicago series and their Thursday Law and Order series. Fox is the leading provider for competition shows.
So, does all this really matter? All the stories about people “cutting the cord” and the rise of streaming services would argue against it. According to Nielsen ratings, just over a quarter of Americans relied on broadcast viewing, with cable picking up 32% and streaming services at 38%.
And yet broadcast television skews toward a more senior demographic. So does the likelihood of voting. So does general concern about crime and support for law and order. Attacks on law enforcement4 (as supporters of “defund the police” learned) challenges the cultural zeitgeist. I can't help but wonder how the new House committee on government overreach that wants to attack the FBI will be seen by those people who spend every Tuesday night watching three hours of FBI series on CBS.
What if we could have a weekly series based on Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy”? Imagine documenting the work of the Innocence Project. What if we had a series on police accountability boards? Each week would be a celebration of good community policing while identifying and correcting bad actors. HBO did an excellent short series last year called “We Own This City”, exploring how a corrupt unit in the Baltimore police department was brought to justice. Back in the 1970s, ABC made a television series about Frank Serpico (played by Al Pacino in the movie and David Birney in the series), who exposed corruption in the NYPD.
Television has long been an imitative art. If one innovation gets ratings, another similar series will come along. I don’t aspire to be an industry executive, but it seems to me that more thoughtful programming might benefit us all.
It’s one of the things I love on his Twitter feed as he reflects on what he’s watching. This week it’s the original Mission Impossible.
FOX only does two hours of prime time programming each night, switching to local news in the final (10 EST) hour.
This particular Monday, CBS did their crossover episode between NCIS, NCIS: Hawaii, and NCIS: Los Angeles so didn’t show their normal opening hour of situation comedies.
Actually, anything short of full-throated support is met with suspicion.
I have a bumper sticker that reads, "If you love your freedom, thank a teacher." I had it made to order, because I was tired of the traditional bumper stickers honoring people who are only one of the kinds of heroes we have. Hero is much too narrowly defined in our culture. We name bridges and sections of highways and even interchanges for "fallen" (a strange euphemism, it seems to me) police or soldiers. But a teacher? Never. A respected legislator? Maybe, occasionally. There are exceptions to this (MLK in many places/contexts), but they tend only to prove the rule.