Youth crime news: Media are problem, media are the solution

Social commentator Walter Lippmann once said that in order to understand our world, we must look to the "pictures in our head" -- the images and words of the media.

But increasingly those images are providing a distorted, if dire, view of adolescents and crime, according to a national study to be released today.

The report, "Off Balance: Youth, Race and Crime in the News," finds media depictions of crime do not reflect the rate of crime, the proportion of violent crime, the share of crime by youths or the proportion of criminal acts by people of color.

And many media stories may leave the impression that violence runs amok, youths are doomed and that black kids deserve much of the blame.

Not so fast.

"People rely on the news media for accurate information. When it comes to crime, youth and people of color, they're getting confusion rather than clarity -- part of the story, not the whole story," said Lori Dorfman, co-author of the report and the Director of the Berkeley Media Studies Group. "The news media can do better."

The report said: "The problem is not the inaccuracy of individual stories, but that the cumulative choices of what is included -- or not included -- in the news presents the public with a false picture of higher frequency and severity of crime than is actually the case."

Such words come at a key time, as far as Seattle is concerned.

Our community is reflecting on what happened during the Mardi Gras social implosion in Pioneer Square.

Sure, personal accountability went out the window.

Yes, public intoxication added to random acts of stupidity.

But in the aftermath of Mardi Gras, some people assailed local media for distorting events and showing pictures -- selectively, they said -- of black offenders.

Let's clear the air.

I agree that black youths were part of the Fat Tuesday mayhem -- and, so, too, were white, Asian and Hispanic kids.

However, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was correct in running a large picture on the local page that showed black men beating a white man. That image has been criticized by community leaders, who say it distorts the role that people of color played.

A difficult picture. But also a snapshot of truth.

What makes "Off Balance" refreshing is that it shows how the media can shape, beyond coverage of a lone event such as Mardi Gras, the way the public views a situation, a group of people -- or an image.

By choosing or refusing to cover a story in depth and offering added layers of context, journalists make a choice to provide needed information or omit vital perspective.

Oftentimes we fall short of best intentions.

When it comes to crime, so few people actually become victims. About three-quarters of the public say they form opinions about crime from what they see or read in the news.

Much of what the public is fed is a less-than-balanced diet, according to the report.

Some details from the study:

Youths rarely appear in the news, but when they do, they are unduly connected to violence or crime.

In one review of more than 9,600 network and local TV stories, only nine were about teens being praised for positive works.

Crimes by people of color -- usually blacks -- tended to be overreported; but when minorities were victims, the stories were underreported.

Across the nation, crime dropped by 20 percent from 1990 to 1998 while network television showed an 83 percent increase in crime news. During the same years, homicide coverage on the network news increased dramatically, although homicides were down.

The implications are troubling.

Distorted coverage can fan fear. In the 1998-1999 school year, a student faced less than a 1-in-2-million chance of being killed at a U.S. school. Yet 71 percent of people, according to one major poll, felt that a school shooting was likely in their community.

Distorted coverage can limit understanding. The media influences how people in important positions think, from police officers to judges. Consider that minorities are one-third of the country's young people but make up more than two-thirds of those youths being detained. "One of the reasons for the overrepresentation is a result of people acting on stereotypes," said Mark Soler, president of the Youth Law Center.

Media coverage and bias -- along with other social factors -- may help explain the disproportionality, said Soler, coordinator of Building Blocks for Youth, a national initiative that commissioned the report and advocates for a fair juvenile-justice system.

So there we have it.

Media are the problem.

And the solution.

Reporters must go beyond the yellow-crime scene tape and the grieving relatives. Photographers must show accurate images -- not the most convenient ones.

Media -- like others in the public -- must probe deeper, must ask why those kids acted up at Mardi Gras. Perhaps seeking a fuller answer would have made the P-I's image part of the broader story rather than just an enduring picture.

More context. Consequences. Patterns. Perspective. Without sharper focus, the pictures in our brain will remain fuzzy.

And we will be left with the wrongheaded impression that violence is inevitable.

P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson can be reached at 206-448-8125 or robertjamieson@seattle-pi.com

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