Art at the Service of Abolition

The role of story: The media and the death penalty

Storytelling has the power to capture imaginations and reach people in a way that opens them up to questioning, learning and ultimately making change. Go out and think about what stories you can tell, whether in the media or in person, but try to make it a good one.

As people who are currently reading this article, you are likely working towards the abolition of the death penalty in some capacity. You are involved in a community that is working to that end and you are arming yourself with as many tools as possible. You may be fighting legal battles, lobbying politicians, communicating with the public or engaging in a multitude of other ways to help bring an end to the death penalty worldwide. As a documentary filmmaker, the death penalty in the United States has been the focus of three separate projects over the years. I would like to take some time to consider the role of a story well told in helping you achieve those ends, and how the media may be engaged in certain ways to help you to do that.
I was lucky enough to be a part of the cultural program of the 6th World Congress against the Death Penalty in Oslo earlier this year. I was able to show a rough cut of my new feature-length documentary on the US death penalty, but also to host an evening with survivors and witnesses to the death penalty. These were only 2 events of a packed cultural program of films, art and music that reflected on the death penalty. The quality of what was on show was brilliant and for me the highlight was hearing the personal stories of those who have been affected from all around the world, a truly touching experience. It is in these different ways of telling stories that I want to try to reflect on how best they can be used to try and bring about some substantial change.
We find ourselves in a particularly interesting time in the media. True crime is having a bumper period of popularity, with the podcast Serial and the Netflix series Making a Murderer being the stand out successes. Suddenly the public are willing to take on long form, serialised and very complex stories of criminal justice in a way that the traditional media outlets never thought they would be interested in. 5 years ago, no TV commissioner would have taken Making A Murderer and it was the success of the Serial podcast that led the way. Now every media outlet is trying to find their own version of this success: just last week Netflix released the Amanda Knox film while MTV wrapped a series looking to exonerate inmates, and even People Magazine is launching its own investigative series. It is in this boom in true crime that we have the opportunity to get the stories of injustice in our criminal justice systems out in to the world in a way that connects with audiences as much as possible. In the world of documentary, whether it is TV, film or radio/podcasts there is currently a backlash against the storytelling that explains the world through facts and figures. There’s the belief that these types of films don’t connect to an audience in the same way. I think that understanding this difference is important for those of us that are wanting to use the media to help make a difference.

* SPOILER ALERT FOR THE NETFLIX SERIES MAKING A MURDERER *

Take for example false confessions. I made a short film in which we say that 25 percent of people exonerated by DNA have falsely confessed, it’s an incredible fact. I think that people who watched the film will have been shocked by the statistic, but I don’t believe their understanding of that statistic is as great as if they had ‘felt’ it happen and that is where good story telling comes in. In the Netflix series Making A Murderer, we watch the police interrogation of a young man with a low IQ as he is eventually pressured into confessing to a murder. The confession is incredibly uncomfortable to watch as the police plant bits of information for him and guide him through the confession and he is clearly guessing at the bits of information that he needs to give them. The audience have SEEN the process happen and FELT its reality, they no longer need to be told that someone might confess to something they didn’t do, it’s a reality that has unfolded in front of them. The series could have had 10 different experts talking about how much this happens, The Reid Technique or the Supreme Courts assertion that it’s ok to lie to prisoners, and I don’t think that it would have had the same impact as the audience seeing it unfold. The reason is that we’re completely compelled by the story, we can’t look away at what is happening to him and we are totally pulled in by his experience. The directors of Making A Murderer intercut interviews with the lawyers giving some background information to give context to the story: to me this is a perfect example of how the media can be extremely effective when trying to inspire change.
Media such as Making a Murderer or Serial would never have been as popular if it weren’t for the strength of their characters and their ability to pull you in through the intimate, and personal. Through individual experience, we can tell a much larger story. Both of those series include larger facts and put the story in context, but only once they have made the audience willing to listen because they cared about the smaller story. This is the holy grail of media when trying to use it to affect change, if we don’t focus on what the audience can connect with, we can’t expect them to be open to the bigger story.

Everyone has a story to tell: whether it’s lawyers, their clients, the families of the victims or the perpetrators, the executioners, the politicians, the public. In these experiences lie the truth of the death penalty and it’s effect on the world, and if we can connect people to that truth, then they will be willing to think about how it could change.