Citation

Chermak S. J. Crim. Justice 1998; 26(1): 61-70.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S0047-2352(97)00055-X

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article examines how various crime, victim, and defendant characteristics affect the amount of space and attention provided to newspaper crime stories. Although there is a rather large body of research documenting the presentation of crime in the news, few studies have used multivariate statistical applications. This study uses multiple regression to identify the important variables that increase the salience of crime stories. The findings indicate that the number of victims affected by a crime is the best predictor of increased story salience. The type of offense also had some influence. Other variables tested, such as victim and defendant characteristics, had very little influence on the space and attention provided to newspaper crime stories.