Changes in Reporting

• Schlesinger and Tumber 1994: in the 60s focus of the media on murders and petty crime. By the 1990s murder and petty crime of less interest due to rising crime rate and the abolition of death rate thus crime had to be ‘special’ to garner readership. Reporting in 1990s moved to drugs, child abuse, terrorism, football hooliganism and ‘mugging’.
• Soothill and Walby 1991: newspaper reporting of rape cases increased from under 1/4 in 1951 to 1/3 in 1985. Coverage consistently focused on the labelling of people as a ‘sex fiend’ or ‘beast’ . Distortion of rape as a serial event attacked by psychopathic strangers, despite most cases the perpetrator is known to the victim.