Media's prime-time crime spree hides real statistics — violence in U.S. is down

Ombudsman

By Paul McMasters
First Amendment Ombudsman
First Amendment Center
pmcmasters@freedomforum.org

11.23.98

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Violent crime declined for the sixth year in a row and now is at its lowest rate since 1987, according to a report released this weekend by the Justice Department. Big news story, right? Well, not quite.

Chances are that you won't find this information as a major story on the front page of your favorite newspaper or leading off the local or network newscasts. Those prime spots are reserved for news about real crimes as opposed to news about abstract statistics that often get in the way of a good story, not to mention some great footage of guts and gurneys, blood and bodies.

Despite the fact that crime has been steadily decreasing in recent years, the majority of Americans still think crime and violence in our society is on the increase. Why is that?

Blame it on the press and its tendency to lead if it bleeds, to emphasize the crime over the context, and to ignore or downplay the good news.

Here are the headlines from this weekend's report:

• The nation's murder rate dropped to its lowest level in three decades, falling 8.1% in the past year.
  
• Teen-age homicides dropped 16%, the fourth year of decline.
  
• Overall crime was 7% lower than 1993.
  
• Robbery was down 7.8%.
  
• Aggravated assault was down 2.3%.
  
• Rape was down 1.1%.

There is all sorts of speculation about the importance of these decreases, what caused them, and whether further decreases can be expected. That is another story. Today, the story is that crime has gone down, not up — despite the public perception.

Crime in any amount is a legitimate social concern and deserving of significant, sustained coverage. But most of the press just can't seem to get it right. In their just-published report, Indictment: The News Media & the Criminal Justice System, authors Wallace Westfeldt and Tom Wicker concluded that too often journalists overuse unidentified sources and leaks, report trials the same way they report sports, fail to explain the legal process, get facts wrong, and label constitutional rights as "technicalities."

"Newspaper and television reports on crime are the most serious cause of exaggerated public fears," Westfeldt and Wicker report.

Patrick O'Driscoll writes in USA TODAY: "The closest brush most Americans have with crime is a daily occurrence: They turn on their TV sets."

Network coverage of murder rose 336% from 1990 to 1995, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs (if you include the O.J. case, it's up 1,352%). A survey of local TV newscasts in March revealed that crime took up 27% of air time, double that of any other category of news.

Pervasive coverage is mistaken for pervasive reality.

Ask most anyone, and they will tell you that crime and violence on television is a major factor in their belief that crime is on the increase. What's worse is that many people and public officials go one step beyond that to say that crime and violence in the media is a cause, rather than a reflection, of crime and violence in our society.

Despite the lack of logic in that argument (if crime and violence on TV is increasing, and there is a cause-and-effect relationship, wouldn't real crime be increasing?), policy makers have used it in their quest for quick fixes: Blame it on the media.

So the media's general approach to crime news results in misperceptions and exaggeration of the problem, which leads to bad public policy, which at the least wastes time and resources and at the worst masks or exacerbates the problem.

The failure of the media to put things in perspective or context has serious consequences.

In 42 states, more and more people carry handguns to protect themselves. More people cower behind locked, double-locked and triple-locked doors in gated communities. More and more firms are making fortunes on home and car security systems.

That's why we now have the federal sentencing guidelines, three-strikes-and-you're-out laws, and the v-chip legislation.

With these developments, we've crossed significant rational and constitutional lines and delayed the time when we'll come to grips with the real causes of crime and violence in our society: poverty, guns, drugs, gangs and other social ills.

In the meantime, the media do violence to the facts, the people do violence to the perception, and public officials do violence to both reason and the constitution.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the media coverage of violence affecting our children. Four times this past year, normally quiet school campuses have been shattered with shooting violence. We pray that that is it, that there won't be anymore. But should another such horror come along, the headlines will be large and the TV coverage continuous.

Let's just hope that a few facts pry their way into that coverage. For example:

• Kids face one chance in a million of being killed at school.
  
• The assault rate in school is the same today as it was in 1976.
  
• 99% of children's deaths occur away from school and the peak times for those deaths are evenings, weekends and vacation periods.
  
• And while 11 young people were killed in those four schoolyard shootings over a period of several months, that many kids are killed every two days by their parents or caregivers.

A few facts like that do not diminish the tragedy, but they just might help us put them into perspective and temper our responses with a little bit of reason.

Paul McMasters may be reached at pmcmasters@freedomforum.org.

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