The Curious Case of Crime in the Mediaselfnews Post The findings have been compiled into an infographic that you will see at the end of this article. Murder, Shootings, Stabbings and Assaults overwhelmingly dominate crime news coverage The media covers these types of crime 20-30% of the time, despite the fact that murder represents less than 1% of crimes committed. In Oakland, the city best ranked for accuracy, the police reports show murder as .8% of crime, while the medias crime coverage focused on murders 62% of the time. If you lived in Oakland and read the news during this week, wed be surprised if you werent shaking in your bed after every creak in the night. In Oakland, residents would have been better served by information discussing burglaries, larcenies and auto theftscrimes that many people could protect themselves against and that together made up 57% of the crime in that city. Even in cities where larceny was by far and away the biggest crime threat to the population, news coverage focused heavily on violent crimes like murder. The majority of crimes documented by the police in Dallas were larcenies, making up 52% of crime that week. News coverage of larceny? Nada. We suspect that crime reporting is heavily influenced by what gets viewers attentions and grabs readers. What you probably didnt know isLocal crime news is a great source for criminal information that you wouldnt get from the police. Two of the cities surveyed had reporters that worked hard to educate the public on criminal justice issues ranging from pending criminal legislation to police misconduct. Wed like to applaud the efforts of crime reporters in Dallas and New York City for bringing important criminal justice issues to the publics attention. Heres how they did: We are especially impressed with reporters in New York City, who advocated for citizens rights in their crime reporting. Given the police conduct issues highlighted by the Occupy Wall Street movement, we were excited to find that reporters in NYC had been highlighting civil liberties issues in their reporting well before the protests began. Sample headlines from the week are: The Take Away? Understand that your local crime coverage is likely flooded by headlines using popular crime buzzwords like kills, shooting, and assault. The city with the highest murder rate, still had less than 1% of crimes committed being murders. Just keep that in mind when reading or watching your local news. But remember, your local news may be the only place to get informed on issues related to criminal justice, police conduct, and other important legislative issues in your city. You can support this information by voting on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/rxvmg/the_curious_case_of_crime_in_the_media/ linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 