Nobody doubts that crime is a serious concern. But the extent of the concern may be a product, in part, of television news coverage. An analysis by the Philadelphia Compact suggests that how residents get their news shapes how much emphasis they place on crime. The more that residents watch television news and the less they read newspapers, the more likely they are to feel that crime is a problem in Philadelphia. Using crime data reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1997, we found that television news viewing is more strongly related to concern about crime than either reported property crime or violent crime by neighborhood.
Education is also related to the proportion of news obtained from television.
But controlling for education does not eliminate the relation between television news viewing and concern about crime. This is not surprising because property crime occurs more frequently than violent crime. We recognize that local crime statistics are subject to question. Nevertheless, the strong relation with television news viewing is consistent with national survey data that also indicate that local television news coverage of crime is a major predictor of fear of and concern about crime despite the actual levels of crime in the viewing region. Although television news viewers express more concern about crime than non-viewers, they are not likely to express more concern about other issues of importance to city residents.