NCJ Number
227584
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 37 Issue: 3 Dated: May/June 20009 Pages: 262-272
Date Published
June 2009
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This study examined the relationship between homicide participant and incident characteristics and news media decisionmaking in the city of Newark, NJ over a 9-year period (1997 to 2005).
Abstract
There are a number of potential implications for emphasizing and de-emphasizing some homicide occurrences in the news based on the race/ethnic and gender statuses of victims and offenders. The public relies on the news media for its information about crime and the response to crime by criminal justice agencies, resulting in distorted representations of homicide participants in an inaccurate public definition of homicide as a social problem. Distorted images of homicide participants could affect fear of crime, as well as the public understanding of the origins and causes of violent crime. This study found that homicide occurrences involving Hispanic offenders and White, African-American, and Hispanic victims were considered significantly more newsworthy than the most common African-American-on-African-American homicide. This article contributes to the growing body of newsworthiness of crime research by examining how cultural typification of victims and offenders affects news media coverage of homicides in Newark, NJ, a research location in which African-Americans make up the majority of the population and Hispanics are the dominant population minority. Tables, notes, and references