Study Finds Local News Skews Youth Coverage

Local television news regularly depicts children as victims of crime or in grave danger, creating an environment of fear that conflicts with a historic decrease in crime affecting children, according to a media study being released today.

“The Local Television News Media’s Picture of Children,” compiled by Children Now, an Oakland-based agency dealing with national child policy and advocacy issues, also concluded that children are underrepresented in the local news, and that the news rarely focuses on public policies that affect American families.

In addition, African American and Latino children are shown in stories of explicit violence more often than other children, presenting an inaccurate reality, the study said.

Patti Miller, director of Children Now’s Children & the Media program, said that almost half of the local news stories dealing with children focused on crime, with more than two-thirds of those stories showing children as victims.

“This kind of coverage is really contributing to a climate of fear,” said Miller. “It is sending the wrong message to children, parents, voters and policymakers, and eclipses other coverage about children such as health, education and how public policy issues affect children.”

Miller added that the emphasis of crime coverage involving children exists despite U.S. Department of Justice data showing that the violent crime victimization rate for youth, including rape, assaults and murders, has declined by half since 1994.

UCLA political science professor Frank Gilliam, who contributed research for the study, said the emphasis on crime-related news revolving around children “leads to one or two actions by parents and policymakers: Either bubble-wrap our children to protect them or support punitive measures against them.”

The study examined one month of local TV evening newscasts on major network-affiliated stations across six nationally representative media markets, including Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and Des Moines, Iowa.

The report was completed before the attacks of Sept. 11.

Miller said local news executives should examine ways to explore more stories on children that revolve around health and education issues. She also suggested that news directors spend more time in communities to determine relevant stories about young people.

The release of the study coincides with the broadcast of “Local News,” a PBS series airing on KCET Thursdays at 8 p.m. this month.