Local TV crime coverage is in love with white America.
An in-depth study published in the authoritative journal Communication Research finds that whites are disproportionately portrayed as victims and shown as police heroes in TV newscasts.
The study from the University of Illinois reviewed five years of local TV news coverage in Los Angeles. The good news: African-Americans are now portrayed accurately in news stories, based on actual police crime and hiring records.
A study of local TV news programs shows that whites are portrayed as good cops in disproportionally high numbers. AP Photo
Crime reports show that whites in LA account for 13 percent of all homicide victims, but made up 35 percent of the victim stories. And when it came to showing police on TV, 73 percent were white but they make up just 53 percent of local police agencies.
The study, provided to the Examiner and available behind a paywall, had bad news for the coverage of Latinos. They accounted for the highest victim rate in Los Angeles, but were portrayed as victims in only 10 percent of newscasts.
The study didn’t give a cause, other than to suggest that the media is behaving “like a sentry for the power structure within society.” Explaining, it added, “This perspective argues that news stories get greater attention if they identify a phenomenon as a threat. Those with the least power in the system, such as people of color, receive the most bias in news coverage.”
It also noted that crime is the fuel of local TV news. “Local news programs continue to feature a steady diet of violent crime news to their viewers,” said the study.
It is titled “Good guys are still always white? Positive change and continued misrepresentation of race and crime on local television news.” The study and findings were summed up this way:
“A content analysis of a random sample of Los Angeles television news programs was used to assess racial representations of perpetrators, victims, and officers. A series of comparisons were used to assess whether local news depictions differed from outside indicators of social reality. In a significant departure from prior research, they revealed that perpetration was accurately depicted on local TV news. Blacks, in particular, were accurately depicted as perpetrators, victims, and officers. However, although Latinos were accurately depicted as perpetrators, they continued to be underrepresented as victims and officers. Conversely, Whites remained significantly overrepresented as victims and officers.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
