NCJ Number
159977
Date Published
1995
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This essay examines media news reporting on crimes against women and how the selection and content of what is covered distort reality and stimulate unwarranted fear among women.
Abstract
In selecting which crimes to give news coverage out of the many crimes reported to police, the news media choose the unusual and the shocking incidents. Thus, the media tend to report crimes in the reverse order of their frequency. Stories about rape and other sexual assaults, including those on children, are frequently selected for reporting by news editors. The results of such coverage are predictable. Surveys show that people believe approximately 25 percent of rape victims are murdered and that the majority are so seriously hurt during their attacks that they require hospitalization. Police data show, however, that the percentage of rape victims murdered is closer to 3 percent and those hospitalized closer to 8 percent. Journalists typically do not report attempted rapes, that is, where the women succeed in escaping their attackers. Such stories would not only show that women are not inevitably helpless when confronted by men intent on rape but would also educate women about what tactics are useful in thwarting attackers. The relationship between media coverage of sexual assault and women's fear calls into question basic definitions of news and the adequacy with which media currently fulfill their basic functions of informing and edifying the public. If the media fail to portray accurately the nature and frequency of crime, along with crime prevention measures and the police response to various crimes and attempted crimes, then the public is not properly prepared to make accurate threat assessments and take appropriate crime prevention measures.