Criminal procedure and media sensationalism

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the impacts and unconstitutionality of sensationalist media coverage of police investigations and criminal proceedings in the Brazilian judicial system, through the inductive method. The media is a means of conveying news in our society, playing an important role in the dissemination of information and social control over Public Organs and Powers. However, especially in the last decades, the sensationalist nature of the articles published in the criminal context is noticeable. Often, the media presentation of criminal cases is done without the necessary impersonality, attacking the figure of defendants and accused. It is noticeable in journalistic articles with police guidelines the formation of the conclusion of guilt in themselves, without guaranteeing the accused of any type of defense. There is a kind of public execration of people who have against them a police investigation or criminal process, with a view merely to the profit of the news channels. Although it is possible to see the media influence primarily on the common public, in recent years we can see the interference of media sensationalism also in the context of criminal proceedings, which – on some occasions – interfered directly in the course of proceedings. This is what happened, for example, with the infamous Operation Lava-Jato. In this study, the hypothesis was established that media sensationalism hurts a series of prerogatives and rights constitutionally guaranteed to the accused/defendants, which was confirmed at the conclusion of the study.