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Journalism, Vol. 7, No. 4, 411-432 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1464884906068360

Medea in the media

Narrative and myth in newspaper coverage of women who kill their children

Barbara Barnett

University of Kansas, USA

In reporting news stories about maternal infanticide, journalists and sources employ the narrative of the flawed mother in explaining why women killed their children. A qualitative analysis of 250 US news articles over a 12-year period found that journalists characterized murderous mothers in oppositional terms, as either superior nurturers driven to insanity because they cared so much, or inferior caretakers who shirked their maternal duties because they cared so little. This focus on the individual allowed journalists to organize and simplify complex information from diverse sources; however, reporters missed opportunities to present infanticide in the broader context of gender inequity and to examine disparities in punishments for women convicted of murdering their children. Journalists’ accounts of the causes of maternal violence - postpartum illness, economic stress, alcohol and drug abuse, too early and unplanned pregnancies, and loss of hope for the future - too often were superficial, reinforcing the myth of the all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful mother, and ignoring the fact that infanticide is a crime that has complex causes. Journalists can strengthen reporting on maternal violence by critically examining stereotypes of mothering as ‘natural’, and therefore easy, and by questioning the availability of family, community, and institutional resources for women who cannot or do not mother well.

Key Words: feminism • infanticide • journalism • maternal violence • motherhood • myth • narrative • news

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