Police and the media

• The task of the police was made much harder by more than 300 letters and postcards sent by men claiming to be the murderer. One letter, called the ‘Dear Boss’ letter, was reproduced in newspapers to try to gain information about the author.
• The press were also very critical of police methods, especially after the ‘double event’ (Stride and Eddowes’s murder on the same night).
• The press also made the investigation more difficult by publishing stories based on journalists’ guesswork and unreliable interviews with locals.
• With rising literacy and cheaper newspapers, huge numbers of cheap newspapers circulated, often with low journalistic standards (so-called ‘Penny dreadfuls’).