Newspaper Coverage of Corporate Price‐Fixing

Abstract

ABSTRACT Among the reasons common corporate crimes such as price‐fixing lack the “brimstone smell” of common street crimes such as burglary is that newspapers fail to provide frequent, prominent, or criminally oriented coverage of corporate crime. This certainly was true of newspaper coverage of the heavy electrical equipment antitrust cases of 1961. Replicative analysis reveals that this also was true of newspaper coverage of the folding‐carton industry antitrust cases of 1976. Reasons for this continued lack of coverage are discussed, including the diffuse harm characteristic of price‐fixing, the general lack of recognition that corporations are juristic persons capable of criminal deviance, and the disinclination of large organizations to link other large organizations with criminality.