Stephen Wright, a self-described “battle-hardened crime journalist,” spent 33 years covering crime for the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. In 2025, he reported that Peter Sullivan, imprisoned with a life sentence, was most likely innocent of murdering Diane Sindall in 1986.
The U.K. press had dubbed Sullivan “the beast of Birkenhead,” a name Wright used, even in reporting his wrongful conviction. Talking about whether such labelling might have been harmful, Wright told me: “I’ve never really thought about that. This is the culture I’ve been brought up in... This is how we do it in the U.K.”
It’s one example of how journalism has a problem: We are addicted to “monsters.” The monster label — used explicitly or simply implied — is an extraordinarily efficient storytelling device.
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