March 2001
Murder, Mayhem, and Television News
by Lydia Miljan
For the past three years, television news has reduced the number of stories on murder, coinciding with the decline in the murder rate. For the first 11 months of 2000, CBC presented only 84 stories on murder, compared with 140 for all of 1999. For CTV, the number of murder stories was 146, down from 171. While the murder statistics for 2000 have not been released, in 1999 the rate was 1.76 per 100,000, down from 1.8 per 100,000 the year before. All indications are that the murder rate has remained constant or declined in 2000 (figure 1).
Murder coverage influences public perceptions of violent crime
Statistics Canada provides yearly data on homicides in Canada. Researchers believe that homicide is a good indicator of overall violent crime, because in almost all instances, the murder is reported. Trends in the homicide rate are reflective of other violent crimes.
Similarly, television’s coverage of the murder rate is an indicator of how people feel about violent crime and there seems to be a close correlation, not between the actual crime rate and people’s perceptions, but of the media’s coverage of violent crime and people’s perceptions.
While violent crime has been on the decline since 1992, as recently as 1998, the polling firm Environics reported that 75 percent of "Canadians feel crime is getting worse." One reason for this perception was that while the murder rate was going down, television coverage of murders had been going up. Only in the last two years have the national networks significantly decreased their crime reporting. This decrease in murder reporting on national network news is related to the public’s belief that they are personally safe. According to Statistics Canada, "overall, 91 percent of Canadians reported being very or somewhat satisfied with their personal safety in 1999, an improvement of 5 percentage points from 6 years earlier." This was echoed by a Gallup poll that indicated that 53 percent of Canadians thought that violent crime had remained the same (Mazzuca, 2000a).
The perception of violent crime is more closely related to homicide coverage on network news than the actual instances of violent crime. Furthermore, people’s fear of crime is not very closely correlated to the violent crime rate. For example, in 1999, 37 percent of British Columbia’s residents thought that violent crime was on the increase, despite the fact that the violent crime rate fell 4.8 percent from 1998 to 1999 (Statistics Canada, 2000b). However, an examination of national television attention to homicides reveals that 18 percent of CBC’s and 25 percent of CTV’s attention to homicides focused on that province. The crimes the networks covered there were also the most heinous, involving high-profile child abductions and murders. This high profile attention on national television news signalled to British Columbians that their world was not safe from random, violent crime.
Television Emphasizes Random Violence
Television news also distorts viewers’ understanding of homicides in its coverage of the relationship between victim and perpetrator. While 44 percent of CBC’s and 48 percent of CTV’s coverage identified a stranger as the perpetrator of a homicide in 2000, only 12 percent of Canadian homicides are committed by persons unknown to the victim (Statistics Canada, 2000c, p. 7). Television news continues to under-report family murders and those committed by acquaintances of the victim. This emphasis on strangers can also help explain the relatively high levels of unease in British Columbia. Among the murder cases reported in that province in 2000 was the abduction and murder of a child by a neighbour unknown to the family.
Television news also has a tendency to emphasize homicides that involve firearms, despite the fact that guns were involved in only 3.3 percent of all violent crimes in the country in 1999. In contrast, 24 percent of CBC and 22 percent of CTV’s coverage of Canadian murders mentioned that a gun had been used in 2000. According to Statistics Canada, 71 percent of violent crimes involve no weapon at all (Statistics Canada, 2000a, p. 20). This type of coverage has an impact on the public’s support for government policies such as gun control. According to a November 20, 2000 Gallup poll, 66 percent of Canadian adults support "stricter regulations for the sale of guns."
So what does television coverage of crime tell us about public attitudes toward crime? While most people are not themselves victims of violent crime, their most likely contact with crime is from the coverage they see on the nightly news. When television news downplays crime, public fear of crime decreases. Conversely, when coverage of a region increases, people there become uneasier, despite the statistical evidence that indicates that they are not in greater danger.
References
Josephine Mazzuca, (2000a), "One Third of Canadians Believe Violent Crime on the Increase," The Gallup Poll, vol. 60, no. 58, August 7.
Mazzuca (2000b), "Majority Favour Stricter Gun Laws," The Gallup Poll, vol. 60, no. 82, November 20.
Statistics Canada (2000a), "Criminal Victimization in Canada, 1999," Juristat, vol. 20, no. 10, June.
Statistics Canada (2000b), "Crime Statistics," The Daily, July 18.
Statistics Canada (2000c), "The Justice Factfinder, 1998," Juristat, vol. 20, no. 4, November.
Lydia Miljan (lydiam@fraserinstitute.ca) is the Director of the Alberta Initiative, as well as the the National Media Archive, of The Fraser Institute. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Calgary.
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