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„An alternative feature strategy was to try to distil the essence or the problematic core of the problem by finding all the general themes condensed into a local instance. This was the feature by microcosm effect. Here the general issue of crime/ poverty/violence was perceived and portrayed through the particular story – for example, of Handsworth. This was most evident in the local papers (as we shall see). In the nationals, it was principally at work in the Guardian. That paper physically – and thus ideologically – separated out the elements of its feature exploration. The interview with the victim and extended protests from pressure groups provided the material of the front-page, follow-up story, but consideration of Paul Storey’s biography and the social environment of Handsworth were reserved for the ‘background problem’ on the features page. This separation – while something of a break with otherwise dominant feature news values – also represented a kind of equivocation. For by going ‘behind’ the immediate issue of liberal penologists versus law-and-order adherents, the Guardian also displaced the problem so that there appeared no relationship between the sentences and policies towards deprivation. The Guardian, unable to confront the ‘moral panic’ to which it had itself contributed through conventional news coverage, sought the safer ground of social policy. Hence the Guardian provided less of an effort to balance competing interests around the case than to balance competing interests within the area: not victim versus mugger but local residents versus those in authority. The sharpness of these conflicts of interest were noted, yet there was no attempt to choose between them any more than the paper could produce an editorial coming down on one side or the other of the controversy over the sentence.“ (Hall et al., 2013, p. 106) #montage;„An alternative feature strategy was to try to distil the essence or the problematic core of the problem by finding all the general themes condensed into a local instance. This was the feature by microcosm effect. Here the general issue of crime/ poverty/violence was perceived and portrayed through the particular story – for example, of Handsworth. This was most evident in the local papers (as we shall see). In the nationals, it was principally at work in the Guardian. That paper physically – and thus ideologically – separated out the elements of its feature exploration. The interview with the victim and extended protests from pressure groups provided the material of the front-page, follow-up story, but consideration of Paul Storey’s biography and the social environment of Handsworth were reserved for the ‘background problem’ on the features page. This separation – while something of a break with otherwise dominant feature news values – also represented a kind of equivocation. For by going ‘behind’ the immediate issue of liberal penologists versus law-and-order adherents, the Guardian also displaced the problem so that there appeared no relationship between the sentences and policies towards deprivation. The Guardian, unable to confront the ‘moral panic’ to which it had itself contributed through conventional news coverage, sought the safer ground of social policy. Hence the Guardian provided less of an effort to balance competing interests around the case than to balance competing interests within the area: not victim versus mugger but local residents versus those in authority. The sharpness of these conflicts of interest were noted, yet there was no attempt to choose between them any more than the paper could produce an editorial coming down on one side or the other of the controversy over the sentence.“ (Hall et al., 2013, p. 106) #montage