In 1963 and 1964 four people associated with Melbourne's wholesale fruit and vegetable market were the victims of shotgun attacks. Because ail the victims were of Italian origin, newspaper reports depicted the crimes as the work of a Mafia organization. This analysis of the press reports, based on the theoretical work of Alfred Schutz, shows how the crimes and the police investigation were described in Melbourne's daily newspapers. The reports in the different newspapers are compared, and the differences are explained by referring to the journalists' expectations about the interests of their readers.
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