ABSTRACT
The consequences of the current use of crime as easy, competitive news include the police control of crime information, the lack of diversity in newspapers which routinely monitor the competition’s crime coverage, and the expansion of crime news which results from monitoring the competition and using crime to attract readers. Whether such consequences should be viewed as costs depends on the effects of such factors on the readers’ perceptions of crime. Specifically, two types of effects on readers will be discussed as “costs”: inappropriate ranking of crime in the readers’ agendas of serious national problems, and unwarranted levels of fear of crime among the readers.
