The news media, particularly television news, unduly connect race and crime, especially violent crime.
Several studies examine race in crime news, but the findings are less straightforward.
Other studies examine how much attention was paid to people of color in crime stories by counting the number of words in stories with perpetrators or victims of color. These different research approaches make it more difficult to draw conclusions across studies. Nonetheless, there is some consistent evidence that a disproportionate number of perpetrators on the news are people of color, especially African Americans. African American perpetrators are depicted as dangerous and indistinguishable as a group, they appear more frequently in crime news stories than Whites, and interracial crime is covered disproportionately. The strongest evidence shows that people of color, again primarily African Americans, are underrepresented as victims in crime news.