ABSTRACT
Crime is an important news topic, every day. One might think that its importance has increased corresponding to public concern over a growing crime problem. However, crime news has long been an information priority. Court reporting can be traced as far back as 1830, and early newspapers sensationalized crime to increase circulation. For example, in the late 1880s when Joseph Pulitzer changed the news focus of the New York World from political news to crime and tragedy, circulation jumped from 15,000 to 250,000. William Randolph Hearst used the same prescription to increase circulation of the New York Journal at the beginning of the 1900s (Lotz, 1991: 10-11). According to Marsh (1988: 11-12), early crime news literature (1893-1929) emphasized the salience of crime in the news.
