Scooped!

by David J. Krajicek

Scooped! surveys the impact of tabloid journalism in America and reveals that crime news and reporting say much about a society fascinated by sleaze and violence. David Krajicek raises important questions about how and why certain crimes are reported, and the ways in which these representations are framing debates concerning crime policy and the criminal justice system. He challenges journalists--in the tabloid, television, and otherwise "respectable" news media--to fulfill their mission to inform, and not inflame, the public.

The book is a much-praised critical analysis of the manner in which the media and politicians trivialized important decisions about criminal justice policy by basing them upon expediency and aberrational crime anecdotes. In the years after Krajicek wrote "Scooped," his criticisms were validated as the costs of criminal justice skyrocketed in American, driven by the expedient political decisions he cites in the book.

Genres: Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published March 4, 1998

About the author

First things first: The name is pronounced CRY-check.

I'm a writer, mostly about crime and murder, although most recently I have published two family-related historical memoirs, "Dear Mama" and "Coming Home to South Omaha." Before retiring recently from the music business, I spent 30 years singing and playing trombone in a band based in the mountains of upstate New York--old-school R&B, like Motown and Stax. Nowadays, most of my spare time is consumed by tennis.

I come from South Omaha, Nebraska, although I now split time between New York and the Gulf Coast.

I studied at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Columbia University. I spent much of my early professional life as a newspaper crime reporter in the Midwest and New York City. I taught journalism at Columbia during most of the 1990s before being compelled to return full-time to my primary muse: writing. I'm back to writing about crime, though in longer form.

For 20 years, from 1999 until 2019, I wrote The Justice Story for the Sunday New York Daily News. It's the longest-running true crime feature in American journalism, published in the News since 1923. Before retiring, each of my 500 columns looked back at an interesting historical crime case--the sorts of stories you will know hear recounted on the countless true crime podcasts.

I have written stories about crime and criminal justice for many media venues, including The Crime Report, Alternet, The New York Times, Columbia and Boston magazines, Slate, The Village Voice, The Manchester (U.K.) Guardian and Mother Jones.

I've had a long side career as a crime expert on TV, appearing more than 25 times on episodes of true crime shows. I've also talked about crime cases on "The Today Show" and was proud to be a part of "The Poisoner's Handbook" on PBS's American Experience.

My books include the family memoirs "Dear Mama" and "Coming Home to South Omaha," both published by News Ink Books; "Charles Manson" and "Mass Killers," by Arcturus/Sirius Books of London, England; "Massachusetts Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival (Second Edition)"; "Death by Rock 'n' Roll," a Kindle ebook from Crimescape/​Rosetta Books; "True Crime: Missouri," a longtime regional bestseller published by Stackpole Books; "Murder, American Style" by News Ink Books, and "Scooped!", published by Columbia University Press.

I've dabbled in fiction, as well. My first published fiction, a short story called "Sutphin Blvd.," was included in an anthology by Midnight Mind Press in New York. Another of my short stories, "Bluefish," was performed at Literally Speaking, an Albany, N.Y., program similar to NPR's "Selected Shorts."

Thanks for your interest in my work. Without readers, there would be no writers.