Ratings vs. Crime Rates

“Tune in our news for the latest-breaking crime stories!! We’re the first and the best when it comes to showing the worst!!”

You’ll never see that kind of promotional commercial for local TV news. Yet that “if-it-bleeds-it-leads” philosophy has long been the unspoken standard here--and it will most likely continue, despite evidence that the rate of crime is going down.

Critics of local newscasts have long charged that the dominant focus on crime has painted an inaccurate portrait of community life. They complain that the coverage has little to do with public safety, consisting instead of a seemingly endless barrage of live police pursuits and “breaking news” stories featuring barricaded suspects and helicopter shots.

These observers--who charge that the stations emphasize crime not only because it is emotionally compelling but also because it is easier to cover than complex social issues--say the coverage contributes to an atmosphere of fear and hysteria.

In a recent local Los Angeles Times poll, 80% of 1,143 respondents said the media’s coverage of violent crime has increased their own personal fear of being a crime victim, with 52% of respondents saying they are much more fearful of being a victim of crime because of news coverage.

Station executives, while admitting that coverage of crime is overblown at times, have defended it, insisting that crime is an unfortunate but prominent part of life in Los Angeles.

This week’s release by the FBI of statistics that showed serious crime continuing its decline--7% nationally and 11.6% in Los Angeles--poured unexpected fuel on the furor. Might stations reevaluate and lessen their focus on crime?

Don’t bet on it, said Warren Cereghino, executive producer of Chris-Craft Television News Service, a division of Chris-Craft, the parent company of KCOP-TV Channel 13.

“Believe me, crime is still a major aspect of life in Southern California, and people who think otherwise are like ostriches with their heads in the ground,” he said. “Crime coverage is overdone sometimes in terms of the amount of time devoted to it, but it’s still the No. 1 issue in L.A. No matter what the numbers say, the streets are not safe.”

*

Cheryl Fair, news director of KABC-TV Channel 7, said: “We don’t cover stories based on statistics. We cover real stories on real people. We turn our back on more crime than we ever report. People say they don’t care about crime until it happens to them. I don’t care where you live, I don’t think the statistics say this has become a safe area.”

Some news directors said the emphasis on crime news can be attributed in part to local TV’s reliance on information from police and fire departments and emergency services--information that is easily accessible by scanning police radio frequencies.

“It’s one of the widest nets we cast when looking for news, and it brings back stories about crime and emergencies,” said Jose Rios, news director of the Fox-owned KTTV-TV Channel 11. “Newsrooms do this simply because the stories can be very compelling. It can be a matter of life and death.”

Among local stations, KABC’s “Eyewitness News” and KCBS-TV Channel 2’s “Action News” have been most criticized in past years for relentless use of crime stories.

KCBS general manager John Culliton, who has spearheaded the station’s recently launched approach for more “balance” in its news coverage, said he understood both sides of the controversy.

“It is true that we have done too much crime coverage, but for the people it affects, they consider it to be very important,” Culliton said.

David Goldberg, news director of KTLA-TV Channel 5, said he agrees with the critics.

“Yes, the crime reporting around the local stations is disproportionate to reality. It helps drive the fear in our communities. You would think it was one of the most dangerous places on earth. But unfortunately, newsrooms find crime very easy to cover. It’s their way of not having to work hard.”

A survey conducted by the Denver-based Rocky Mountain Media Watch of 100 local station broadcasts around the country on the evening of Feb. 26 found that 72% of the newscasts led with stories about crime and violence. Only seven stations, including KTLA, were classified as “rejecting sensationalism.”

One story that tested the media’s standards involved the Jan. 16 murder of Ennis Cosby, the son of entertainer Bill Cosby, in an isolated Westside area off the San Diego Freeway.

KCBS broadcast a story noting that the area was one of the safest in the city.

“We didn’t want people to be scared when they saw the news,” said KCBS news director Larry Perret.

Los Angeles Urban League President John Mack has held meetings with several local news directors, contending that the focus on crime creates unbalanced coverage of African American communities. Rarely, he and other critics charge, do cameras come to the inner city except when violence occurs.

“If one watches the evening news on local broadcasts, they get the picture that Los Angeles is a war zone,” Mack said. “They have created such hysteria that many people live in fear.”

“The news directors and general managers don’t have a real commitment to the community” said Joseph Benti, a former anchor of KCBS-TV Channel 2. “They are in them but not of them. If these folks had a real stake in the community and not just in a rating point, then they would change. They’ve already turned off the viewers. Those who really want to know what’s going on watch CNN. They don’t watch local news.”

*

Some news executives say they are trying to be more sensitive and selective about crime coverage. Perret said KCBS has issued its reporters and producers a handbook imploring them not to be alarmist in their coverage of crime. KCAL-TV Channel 9 says it attempts to sprinkle crime stories throughout its three-hour prime-time block instead of bunching the stories together at the top of the news.

“I do think TV news has been guilty of an overemphasis on crime stories,” Perret said. “It does paint a false portrait of the community. It’s so easy to have helicopters flying around, and when anything happens, you can cut to it live. We have been guilty of that, but we’re trying to reduce the meaningless crime coverage. These stories need to be put into perspective.”