Media Obsession With Violence and Celebrity in TV News

Introduction: TV News and the Culture of Sensationalism

Television news programs today are letting the public down by obsessing over violence, rape, kidnapping, and other inhumane acts. Television news is also preoccupied with celebrities — their sexual scandals, drug use, and drinking habits — and any doubt about this can be easily put to rest by examining recent coverage of the Tiger Woods sexual scandal. Whether local or national network news, or cable TV news programs such as MSNBC, CNN, and FOX, the emphasis in television news tends toward what is racy, scandalous, sexy, seamy, or horrifyingly violent. This situation is made more troublesome by the fact that newspaper publishers are losing readership and advertising revenue at an alarming rate, and some major city newspapers are being forced out of business. This narrows the field for information, leaving more people than ever dependent on television, the Internet, and radio as their main sources of news.

The solution for television's shoddy treatment of news is for more legitimate journalists — not celebrity hunters on TMZ or so-called "ambush reporters" — to present substantive news on the Internet, on blogs, and on local community-affiliated public television networks.

Effects of Violent News Coverage on Children

"Television news is filled with violence and suffering," according to Juliette H. Walma van der Molen, PhD. Writing in the June 2004 edition of the journal Pediatrics, van der Molen asserts that "local news, which is widely used by Americans, is often found to overemphasize brutal crime" and relies "heavily on sensational presentations of violence." Moreover, she notes that analyses of major network newscasts have shown "that crime and violent world events are among the most frequently covered topics" (van der Molen, 2004, p. 1771).

Because children depend on television for their understanding of world events, and because "they watch more news broadcasts than many parents and other caregivers might think they do," van der Molen believes children "of all ages" may be "regularly confronted with highly distressing and violent accounts of murders, catastrophic accidents, war, and other suffering" (p. 1771). Van der Molen is troubled by the fact that studies on children and television violence tend to focus on entertainment programs rather than on the violent content in news broadcasts.

Pertinent research she presents includes studies showing that "more realistic portrayals of violence may heighten levels of involvement and aggression," producing effects such as "immediate fright reactions," "fear of the world as a scary place," and "desensitization" (p. 1772). Frequent viewing of violence in news programs — programs that overemphasize terror, violent crime, war, and domestic violence — "could enhance long-term observational learning of violent schemas or scripts" (van der Molen, p. 1772). The troubling reality is that such programs could make young viewers "less sensitive to other people's distress" and "more accepting of violent behavior" (p. 1772). With today's ever-growing obsession with "sensationalist and violent news stories" and a new journalism style that blurs news and entertainment, parents and caregivers should be aware that most news programs are not adapted to "children's cognitive level and emotional experiences" (p. 1773).

One solution van der Molen suggests is for medical and community leaders to advise parents to carefully monitor their television news consumption — particularly for children under eight years of age, who are not yet mature enough to process violent TV news (p. 1773). She also recommends that pediatricians lobby at the national level for the creation of a daily news program "that makes the main news comprehensible to young viewers" (van der Molen, p. 1773).

The problem of violent TV news is not new. An article in the American Journal of Public Health (Dorfman et al., 1997) published a study covering newscasts on 12 days in 1993, drawn from 15 southern California network affiliates and local TV stations. A total of 214 hours of news programming included 8,021 news stories. "Violence was the single most frequent story topic," Dorfman writes. There were 783 stories involving both violence and youth; 444 stories on crimes "included shootings, abductions, and child abuse and neglect" (Dorfman, p. 1312). One hundred and eight stories were about murder cases — many involving the Menendez brothers, who were accused of killing their parents — and 74 stories covered crime in schools, including vandalism, shootings, and sexual assault of students by teachers.

While the article documents the prevalence of violence on TV newscasts, the authors also note that "much more television news is produced locally than nationally," placing much of the blame on local and regional newsgathering rather than on national network producers. A telling detail: in 84% of the violent stories, "the context in which the violence occurred was ignored or deemphasized." Children thus see the results of crime without understanding its causes. The report also notes how violence and crime can displace other stories entirely. A teenager who stole from an ice cream truck received the same number of stories as the President's AmeriCorps program — a program that features young people performing positive, community-oriented service.

Shrinking Local News and the Spread of Violence on Television

According to the Columbia Journalism Review (Downie et al., 2009), part of the blame lies in the fact that "the number of TV stations producing local news of their own is steadily shrinking." Stations are increasingly relying on news produced by other providers. Some 205 stations across the United States use newscasts "produced by other stations in the same cities" (Downie). In fact, the ABC affiliate in St. Louis, KDNL, and WYOU (serving Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania) "have dropped local news altogether."

Paul Kite of the Rocky Mountain Media Watch explains that the seventy-five percent of Americans who regularly watch TV news "are subjected to a substantial nightly dose of catastrophe" (Kite, 1999). And though journalists understand the "enormous power" their broadcasts hold over the public, "the news industry has no ethical guidelines for airing violent images." The obsessive portrayal of violence on TV news has generated "copycat crimes, including mass murder, terrorism, hijackings, workplace violence, product tampering, hate crimes, and suicide" (Kite, p. 2). Kite further asserts that studies link "violent video" with "violent resolution of conflict" among viewers. Violent news footage "encourages aggressive behavior and diminishes empathy for victims" (Kite, p. 2).

Television's power to influence behavior "attracts billions of advertising dollars," Kite continues, and because of the repetition of violent news stories, "gruesome images have been burned into our brains" (Kite, p. 3). People in marketing call it "arousal," which helps sell the merchandise advertised during TV news programs. As a remedy, Kite echoes Dorfman's recommendation that crimes shown on air should be placed in context: "explain the cruelty, don't just film it. In real life, violence has consequences" (Kite, p. 4). Broadcasters should also be educated about their capacity "for harm," and the industry should develop standards for dealing more ethically with "potentially hazardous material" (Kite, p. 4).

Works Cited

Dorfman, Lori, Katie Woodruff, Vivian Chavez, and Lawrence Wallack. "Youth and Violence on Local Television News in California." American Journal of Public Health 87.8 (1997): 1311–1316.

Downie, Leonard, and Michael Schudson. "The Reconstruction of American Journalism." Columbia Journalism Review (Oct. 19, 2009).

Kite, Paul. "TV News and the Culture of Violence." Rocky Mountain Media Watch. Retrieved December 4, 2009, from http://www.bigmedia.org/texts6.html.

Fenton, Tom. Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, the Business of News, and the Danger to Us All. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

Massing, Michael. "Katie and Diane: The Wrong Questions." Columbia Journalism Review (September 23, 2009).

Walma van der Molen, Juliette H. "Violence and Suffering in Television News: Toward a Broader Conception of Harmful Television Content for Children." Pediatrics / Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics 113.6 (2004): 1771–1775.