Television news
Television news plays a crucial role in shaping public perceptions of crime and criminal justice. Its coverage is often characterized by a disproportionate focus on crime and violence, leading to widespread misconceptions about the actual rates of criminal activity. For instance, despite a decline in crime rates since the mid-1990s, many individuals continue to believe that crime is on the rise, largely due to sensationalized reporting. The phrase "if it bleeds, it leads" encapsulates the tendency of news outlets to prioritize crime stories, as these attract larger audiences and higher advertising revenues.
This emphasis extends to specific demographics, particularly juveniles, with extensive coverage of youth-related crimes, even as actual rates of juvenile offenses have significantly decreased. Local television news often highlights violent incidents, contributing to an inflated perception of crime in communities. The justification for this approach is frequently framed as a public service, with the belief that crime news is more critical to society than other types of reporting.
As media consumption shifts increasingly to online platforms, the patterns of crime reporting remain consistent, often perpetuating the same myths and exaggerated fears. Overall, the influence of television news on public views of crime is profound, underscoring the need for critical engagement with media narratives to foster a more accurate understanding of crime and its implications for criminal justice policies.
Subject Terms
Television news
SIGNIFICANCE: It is a well-documented fact that television news offers distorted coverage of crime. Although there are differing explanations for why television news is saturated with coverage of crime and violence, the fact that such coverage distorts public perceptions of crime and affects criminal justice policies is beyond contention.
As the United States becomes ever more a media nation, public perceptions of the world are increasingly influenced by media consumption. Such perceptions include public views on the nature and extent of crime and violent crime in the United States. Public perceptions help to shape what society expects and is willing to permit as acceptable criminal justice policies. Whether the public wishes to rehabilitate, educate, or demand vengeance upon criminal offenders is based, to a large extent, on such perceptions.
More than any other source, the news media, both on television and online, are responsible for shaping public views on crime and criminal justice issues. Such media-driven perceptions combine with real-world experiences to make citizens feel safe or fearful when they leave their homes at night or walk to their cars after work. It is a well-researched and widely accepted truth that a vast majority of Americans receive their images of crime and their knowledge of the criminal justice system from what they see and read in the news media. One study places that majority as high as 76 percent. It is thus important to understand how the news media approach these issues.
The fact that public perceptions of crime rates do not reflect actual rates of crime is beyond contention. A vast majority of citizens are misinformed on crime in this country. For example, although crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, the public has continued to believe that crime rates have continued to rise—and in almost epidemic proportions. The news media are the primary source of such misperceptions, and public misperceptions drive government criminal justice policies.
Disproportionate News Media Coverage of Crime
The phrase “if it bleeds, it leads” has come for many to describe the news media’s approach to crime coverage, and this is particularly true of television news. The reason is simple: Crime stories attract more viewers than less sensational stories. Larger audiences mean higher television ratings, and higher ratings mean greater advertising revenue.
Some representative statistics on homicide demonstrate the overemphasis on violent crime in television news. For example, although homicides traditionally account for only 0.1 to 0.2 percent of all arrests made in the United States, one news channel reported 67 percent of these arrests on its evening news broadcast in 2020. Moreover, although the numbers of homicide arrests in the United States dropped 34 percent between 1993 and 2022, television news stories on homicide continue to be covered at a much higher rate than other arrests, making viewers think homicide arrests are a common occurancee. The trend in print media coverage of homicide was similar, but the increase in homicide coverage was not as great.
Offenses committed by juveniles are also disproportionately covered in the news media. According to Juvenile Justice Statistics in 2022, the number of juvenile offenders arrested for violent crimes (murder, robbery, and aggravated assault) dropped 78 percent between 1994 and 2020, yet these crimes were disproportionately covered by television news reporters. The public misperception about a high rate of juvenile crime was almost certainly a result of this overemphasis on juvenile delinquency in the news media. This overemphasis is particularly evident in local television news coverage. One study of local television news stories focusing on youths found that about 74 percent of the stories pertained to incidents of crime and violence. That figure contrasts with the 40 percent of metropolitan newspaper stories on youths that focused on crime and violence. While violence perpetrated by youths is overreported in the news media, violence against youths is underreported.
Threat to Society
Journalists and others working in the news media tend to justify their overreporting of crime by calling it a service to society. In their view, crimes tear at the moral fiber of society and endanger the innocent. They see occurrences of criminal behavior as more important than events that do not threaten society or endanger the innocent. Overreporting of crime and violence is thus justified, as they are simply more important than events that do not threaten society and the innocent.
Crimes committed in what are believed to be safe areas or by persons who are expected to be innocent receive particular attention in the news media because they are unexpected, and unexpected events are more newsworthy. This same logic helps to explain why crimes committed by youths are overreported: Youths are expected to be innocent, and when they commit crimes, it is unexpected. Violent events in places such as schools and daycare centers are especially newsworthy because they are places that have long been regarded as safe havens for the innocent.
With the rise of the Internet and social media, news coverage has moved to these mediums as, in many ways, Internet media has eclipsed more traditional forms of news media. Where people in past decades would have to wait for the printing of the daily newspaper or the evening news broadcast to get the news of the day, people today have access to regularly updated news coverage on the Internet and even more frequent updates through Twitter feeds and the like. Despite the increased access to news and consistent coverage, the accuracy of the general perception of crime rates and the state of crime is little improved. Certain events will get more, and arguably oversaturated, coverage in an increased number of outlets. As a result, topics such as the prevalence of violent crime the direct threat of terrorism in America become skewed or exaggerated.
Bibliography
Brown, Brittni. "Is the Media Altering Our Perceptions of Crime?" International Policy Digest, 11 Mar. 2015. Web. 26 May 2016.
Chermak, Steven M. Victims in the News: Crime and the American News Media. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995. Examination of the role of victims in media coverage of crime news.
Itoi, Nikki. "How Social Media Shapes Our Perceptions About Crime." Stanford University, 27 Feb. 2023, hai.stanford.edu/news/how-social-media-shapes-our-perceptions-about-crime. Accessed 11 July 2024.
Klug, Elizabeth A. “Juvenile Crimes Are Vastly Overreported by the Media.” Corrections Compendium 26, no. 6 (June 2001). Carefully documented study of how the news media overreports juvenile offenses.
Lipschultz, Jeremy H., and Michael L. Hilt. Crime and Local TV News: Dramatic, Breaking, and Live from the Scene. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002. Analysis of local television news that emphasizes theories of market-driven journalism and lack of interest in public affairs coverage as factors explaining media emphasis on crime.
O'Hear, Michael. "Violent Crime and Media Coverage in One City: A Statistical Shapshot." Marquette Law School, vol. 103, no. 3, 2020, scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol103/iss3/14/. Accessed 11 July 2024.
Potter, Gary W., and Victor E. Kappeler, eds. Constructing Crime: Perspectives on Making News and Social Problems. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1998. Collection of fifteen essays examining media and crime. The essays examine how popular images of crime are generated, the effects of these images, and who benefits from the images that are constructed.
Puzzanchera, Charles. "Trends in Youth Arrests for Violent Crimes." Juvenile Justice Statistics, US Department of Justice, Aug. 2022, scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol103/iss3/14/. Accessed 11 July 2024.
Sherwin, Richard K. When Law Goes Pop: The Vanishing Line Between Law and Popular Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Study by a legal scholar and former prosecutor of the corrupting influence on the criminal justice system of television and film treatments of criminal justice.
Sorenson, Susan B., Julie G. Peterson Manz, and Richard A. Berk. “News Media Coverage and the Epidemiology of Homicide.” The American Journal of Public Health 88, no. 10 (October, 1998). Study of the discrepancies between news media coverage of homicide and actual trends in homicide.
Surette, Ray. Media, Crime, and Criminal Justice. 2d ed. Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole Publishing, 1998. Perhaps the definitive work on media coverage of criminal justice, this book explores media treatments of crime and offers extensive discussions of relevant Supreme Court decisions and summaries of research on media and crime issues.
Yanich, Danilo. “Location, Location, Location: Urban and Suburban Crime on Local TV News.” Journal of Urban Affairs (Summer/Fall, 2001). Examination of the tendency of local television news to overemphasize crime in neighborhoods that are expected to be safe.