Profiteering off murder and misery: Who does more damage, the MSM or murderabilia peddlers?

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Clyde Barrow's Colt pistol, via the Waco Tribune Herald

Since Texas passed a law a decade or so ago banning so-called "murderabilia," or selling mementos from famous killers, I found it interesting to notice via the Waco Tribune Herald that several items related to famed bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are up for auction this weekend. The Texas law has never been effectively enforced, in part because of the rise of out-of-state Internet auction sites, and it only bans killers themselves profiting from such items, so it wouldn't affect Bonnie and Clyde memorabilia, in any event. But the auction underlines how faint is the difference between "murderabilia" and "history." Some of the items on sale were formerly displayed at the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco. Texas' statute on murderabilia, as described by the Houston Chronicle, "calls for the confiscation of any profits that are inflated because of a criminal's notoriety." To me, though, it is the mainstream media more than anyone else who chiefly profits from criminals' "notoriety": Sensationalist crime coverage is their bread and butter, exemplified by the local TV news mantra, "If it bleeds, it leads."

Former federal District Judge Nancy Gertner, who retired last year to teach at Harvard Law School, recently authored an opinion piece titled "The Media's Reporting on Justice is Criminal" which critiqued the MSM for "beating the drum" in individual cases with formulaic, slanted coverage that misunderstands and distorts the criminal justice process. The reason the media do that, of course, is that it draws more eyeballs, for the same reason people slow down on the freeway to gawk at a gruesome accident. And since advertisers follow eyeballs, and advertising revenue is dwindling, in the 21st century the incentive to sensationalize crime for profit has reached heretofore unseen heights. (Witness Nancy Grace.) That's the main reason why the public thinks crime is rising even though crime rates, particularly for violent crimes, are at modern lows.

One person's murderabilia is another person's historical artifact. But neither murderers nor collectors would be able to profit from "murderabilia" if the MSM hadn't beaten them to the punch in profiteering off crime and misery.