Crime Reporting in Newspapers
Crime reporting, while meant to be informative, was generally sensationalized for entertainment purposes. This was frowned upon by many as a means of glorifying crime to the extent that it would inspire others to act as recklessly. These reports often included limited information as well as misspellings and mistellings, which has definitely made these archivists' job more difficult.
While the amount of crime being recorded was not changing, the way it was presented certainly was. As described in Presentation of Crime in Newspapers, Frank Harris, Ph. D., a large amount of crime news was being included on the front page of newspapers starting in the late 19th/early 20th century. These types of news stories were given precedence, at the time receiving approximately 30-40% of the front page space (as recorded by total front page inches) and approximately 3-7% of the overall content, shown in the image below, as reported by the three major newspapers at the time: The St Paul Globe, The Minneapolis Tribune and the Times. The three following images are taken from Presentation of Crime in Newspapers, Frank Harris, Ph. D. (1932): 29, 31, 84.
Below is a break down of the types of crimes being depicted and how much content area they were receiving in each of the three previous mentioned major Minneapolis/St Paul newspapers:
Below is an index of crime reports, showing the types of crimes being emphasized in the news:
The Bohemian Flats area in particular fell victim to oversimplification of the facts, receiving a reputation by the media as a center for both disease and crime. The individuals from Bohemian Flats, even outside of crime stories, were presented as stupid and brutish. The people described were often painted as if they could not help but engage in such debaucherous activity, even in some cases being deemed "blood thirsty." Because many of the residents were recent immigrants from Europe including Germany, Slovakia and Poland among others, reports often failed to get the facts straight on stories because of language barriers as well as stereotyping and in some cases xenophobia. See Crime in the Bohemian Flats for more information on specific crimes in the Bohemian Flats, when addresses were provided for map data collection.
Often the amount of detail presented in an article depended on political alignment (either Democratic or Republican). Here is an example from April 4th, 1888 on the Demko murder that occurred on the Bohemian Flats:
Minneapolis Tribune (Republican Affiliation): "For some unknown reason Monday night was one of merrymaking and debauchery on the Bohemian Flats."
St Paul Daily Globe (Democratic Affiliation): "Easter Monday is a gala day among the Hungarians and Bohemians..."
The following images are provided, with thanks, by the Hennipin County Library:
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