The blame game: news, blame, and young homicide victims

ABSTRACT

Media have represented blame in homicide cases as attributable to a victim or an offender; we provide a more nuanced category of shared blame. We examine stories covering young homicide victims to demonstrate how shared blame is operationalized in print news, noting stark differences across a victim’s race and gender. We conduct a content analysis of the Orlando Sentinel newspaper and police reports from Seminole County and Sanford, Florida, from 2000 to 2012. Stark racial and gender differences are apparent in the way the content is framed and how the victims are depicted. The newspaper’s representation of young African American males is consistent with existing stereotypes of the “criminal black man.” We discuss the larger implications of our findings and how our results apply to high-profile killings of young homicide victims including Trayvon Martin.

Notes

¹ Information about the Orlando Sentinel newspaper comes from their advertising and subscription Web site. The Web address is http://www.orlandosentinelmediagroup.com/AF/ReaderDemo.aspx.

² In instances where the homicide reports and newspapers were inconsistent, we relied on the information from the newspaper articles.

³ Ethnicity was not coded in the homicide reports. Some victims had Hispanic surnames (e.g., Gonzales). They were coded as white by the police in the homicide reports, and no indication of Hispanic ethnicity was given. Although there were indications in the articles that suggested the ethnicity of the victim, making such assumptions about ethnicity may have biased our results. For example, a victim could have been adopted by or married someone with a Hispanic surname. As such, we rely only on the indicators of race that were recorded in the police reports.

⁴ We analyze only the text and titles of the news stories; obituaries and photos were excluded.

⁵ It is important to note that the results of this study center on the number of homicide stories covering youth homicides (N = 91) rather than the number of youth homicide victims (N = 40). As such, the stories presented in the 91 articles are grouped by the categories that emerged from the content analysis and not by homicide victims. We only use victims’ information to group the articles by victims’ race and gender.

⁶ The Sanford and Seminole County police deem homicide cases as cleared by exception when arrest and prosecution of a suspect is precluded because there is insufficient evidence. It should be noted that the Orlando Sentinel did include a memorial photo only and referred to the family as friends of the newspaper. The police report suggested that the father could have been the perpetrator in this case; however, this was unclear in the police report. Because the victims, including the possible perpetrator, were associated with individuals at the newspaper, the newspaper might not have wanted a story to be run on this horrific event, which could explain why no newspaper article was devoted to this unusual crime with multiple victims.

⁷ Orlando is a tourist destination, and tourism is a major contributor to Orlando’s economy. The image that tourists have of Orlando includes the Disney theme park—the “happiest place on earth.” It is possible that Orlando might not want to interfere with tourists’ perceptions of Orlando by including news stories about violent crimes in the area, since doing so might adversely affect their economy. Essentially, their reliance on tourism might motivate the city to appear less violent to tourists. As such, it is important for future work to replicate this study by considering areas that do not depend on tourism as their main source of revenue.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Valerie Wright

Valerie L. Wright is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology, Anthropology, and Sociology at Cleveland State University. Her research interests include racial/ethnic differences in opinions about salient crime events and whether there are differences in media coverage by race and gender among young homicide victims.

Heather M. Washington

Heather M. Washington is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University. Her primary research interests focus on the collateral consequences of mass incarceration for incarcerees and those who are connected to them by familial ties.