Support for Greer + Reiner

• The media over-represent violent and sexual crime. Ditton and Duffy found that 46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes, yet these made up only 3% of all crimes recorded by the police. One review by Marsh of studies of news reporting in America found that a violent crime was 36X more likely to be reported than a property crime.
• The media exaggerate the risk of victimisation, especially to women, white people and higher status individuals.
• Media coverage exaggerates police success in clearing up cases. This is partly because the police are a major source of crime stories and want to present themselves in a good light, and partly because the media over - represents violent crime, which has a higher clear-up rate than property crime.
• Crime is reported as a series of separate events without structure and without examining underlying causes.