Although alcohol consumption plays a role in about 31 percent of homicides, only 1.4 percent of TV news reports on murders mention alcohol. Only 12.8 percent of TV news stories on traffic accidents mention alcohol, while 34 percent of accidents involve drunk drivers. I've often wondered why people who've consumed many drinks still drive at high speeds, where at best they're likely to get caught for drunk driving, and perhaps this is part of the reason.
An Ohio State press release describes the study, conducted by Michael Slater, Marilee Long, and Valerie Ford:
They used statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration which estimated that 34 percent of accidents involved people who were legally intoxicated.
The researchers then examined coverage of crimes and accidents appearing in a national sample of daily newspaper, magazine and local television news, as well as national television news during a two-year period (2002-03). They determined the percentage of stories that linked alcohol use to specific violent crimes, injuries and motor vehicle accidents.
In all, they analyzed the content of about 1,000 daily newspaper editions, 550 television news programs, and 72 magazine issues. Newspapers and television stations were selected so they represented all regions of the country, in cities of various sizes. Three news magazines - Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report -- were also sampled, as were the three major television networks, CNN and USA Today.
One possible objection to the study could be that the researchers didn't investigate the specific incidents to find out if alcohol actually was involved. But even if it turned out that alcohol wasn't involved in these specific cases, the question of why the media isn't reporting on alcohol related crimes and accidents would still remain.
In other news:
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I can postulate one answer; as far as I see from typical media (which isn't much) the majority of reported news is from national events - not violent crimes, injuries and motor vehicle accidents. I would be more interested in the proportion of stories linking alcohol to violent crimes, injuries and motor vehicle accidents taken from total stories of violent crimes, injuries and motor vehicle accidents in general.
Jordan,
I think that's what they're doing. They take a look at the total number of reports on, say, murder. Then they see what portion of those reports indicates alcohol was involved. In the case of TV reports, they came up with 1.4 percent, compared with 31 percent of all murders (whether reported on TV or not) involving alcohol.
I think a factor that isn't being considered here is that reporters are usually not present at the crime scene, but are passing along what particulars that have or haven't been made available to them by police agencies, DAs' offices, &c.
Also, not uncommonly, a story on an incident is published before toxicology results are available, while in other incidents, police and/or eyewitness statements made at the scene include observations of prima facie alcohol involvement.
One possible reason, particularly for homicide, is that the killer being drunk isn't nearly as interesting (from a journalistic perspective) as many of the other possible contributing factors - jealousy, greed, anger, and other passions.