Trial By Media

Trial By Media is a 6-part documentary series that casts an in depth look at six sensational crimes that shook America, and also engaged the attention of the world. The series looks at these crimes from the point of view of the role played by the media in manipulating the final verdict of these cases. The docuseries focuses on heavily hyped cases such as the 1984 “subway vigilante” case, in which a man shot dead four men who had surrounded him in the subway – a sequence recreated in the 2019 Joker movie; the darkly comic case of 1988, which led to the downfall of then Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, the 1995 case against the Jenny Jones Show which instigated a man to shoot dead his friend and neighbour; the 1999 incident revolving around Amadou Diallo, the unarmed 23-year-old African immigrant who was shot to death by the NYPD, and several other interesting and explosive cases. It is a provocative and enlightening look at these cases, and brings up very pertinent points about the new-age penchant of trial and justice by social media and journalism. Executive producers: George Clooney and Grant Heslov