Since 2002, popular media has been disseminating serious concerns that the integrity of the criminal trial is being compromised by the effects of television drama. This concern has been dubbed the "CSI effect" after the popular franchise Crime Scene Investigation (CSI). Specifically, it was widely alleged that CSI, one of the most watched programs on television, was affecting jury deliberations and outcomes. [...]

From Euripides to Shakespeare to Hitchcock, criminal madness has played a central role in the most popular and influential media of the day. This is, perhaps, not surprising. Not only is criminal madness an intrinsically powerful melodramatic plot device, it touches upon fundamental social and psychological issues central to cultural conceptions of justice, proper social organization, and the self. [...]

Above the fold:
HUNTSVILLE, Texas—Texas executed [name of inmate or description of inmate as a killer] on [day of week] for [brief description of crime for which inmate was sentenced to death].
“[Final statement of inmate, made from lethal injection gurney],” [name of inmate] said. He was pronounced dead at [time], [number] of minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow. [...]

In the last few years, despite scant empirical support, the media have identified as a primary reason for high HIV rates among black women the phenomenon of black men who live on the "down low" (or DL). Such men are said to maintain primary romantic relationships with women while engaging in secret sexual liaisons with men. Drawing on a perpetrator-victim framework, this discourse pits "deviant" black men who have sex with men (MSM) against "respectable" black women and the broader black community. [...]