Counter-arguments

• There is some evidence of changes in the type of coverage of crime by the news media. Schlesinger and Tumber found that in the 1960s the focus had been on murders and petty crime, but by the 1990s murder and petty crime were of less interest to the media. The change came about partly because of the abolition of the death penalty for murder and partly because rising crime rates meant that a crime had to be 'special' to attract coverage. By the 1990s, reporting had also widened to include drugs, child abuse, terrorism, football hooliganism and mugging.
• There is also evidence of increasing preoccupation with sex crimes. Soothill and Walby found that newspaper reporting of rape cases increased from under a quarter of all cases in 1951 to over a third in 1985. They also note that coverage consistently focuses on identifying a 'sex fiend' or 'beast', often by

  use of labels (such as 'the balaclava rapist'). The resulting distorted picture of rape is one of serial attacks carried out by psychopathic strangers. While these do occur, they are the exception rather than the rule - in most cases the perpetrator is known to the victim.