Keep it in context. How often does this crime occur? Where does it occur most often? Cover trends as much or more than you cover events.
Do the pictures, sounds, and copy reflect the truth and context? Who are you showing and why? Avoid stereotypes in your video. Be careful not to use images that make the story more sensational than it was in real life. Flashing lights and blaring sirens flash just as brightly and blare just as loudly on false alarms as they do on disasters. Don't mislead the public. Avoid hyperbolic language and narration that pump air into stories that have no real substance.
Avoid file tape. Columbine, 9/11, and the Oklahoma City bombing only happened once. Replaying inflammatory video of any crime scene rarely adds information, only emotion. It is especially important to be sensitive to crime scene video that might show people in their moment of anguish or vulnerability. The repeated use of video of a person in handcuffs can harm that person's ability to get a fair trial.
Avoid "code words." Use precise language when describing the location of a crime. Avoid words such as "inner city," when you really mean 1216 East Elm Street. The White House is technically in "inner city" Washington, D.C.
Carefully use production techniques. Slow motion video makes people look more guilty. Dramatic lighting, framing, and backgrounds all carry editorial implications and convey a mood or tone. Quick edits may add energy to a story but may send inappropriate signals about the real urgency of the story.
Reject conventional wisdom. Strangers rarely abduct children. Most crime victims know the offender. The majority of crimes occur in the daytime. Eyewitnesses to crimes are often wrong. Schools are the safest place a child goes all day. A child is at much greater risk from obesity than eating tainted Halloween candy. The safest part of any plane trip is while you are in the air; the most dangerous part is while driving to and from the airport. In the entire history of commercial aviation, about 14,000 people have died in airplane crashes. Three times as many people die in car crashes in any single year.
Look for trends. Here is an example of a trend involving women in prison. You can clearly see how drug sentences sent the female prison population soaring.
- From 1990 to 2000, the number of mothers in prison grew 87 percent, while fathers increased by 61 percent.
- Fifty-four percent of mothers in state prisons said they never had visits from their children.
- Sixty-five percent of mothers report using drugs in the month before the offense.
- Forty-three percent of mothers report being under the influence of drugs when committing their crime.
- Twenty-nine percent of mothers report committing their crime under the influence of alcohol.
- Twenty-three percent of mothers report indications of mental illness.
- Eighteen percent of mothers report having been homeless in the year before arrest.
Go beyond the "what" to the "so what." If the police department announces that murders have declined, find out if armed assaults have increased. It could be that thanks to a new trauma center opening across town, more people are surviving their assault and that people are being shot/stabbed at a higher rate. It could also be that the police department changed the way it "codes" certain crimes to improve their statistics, as happened in Atlanta just before the city was selected as the site of the Olympics.
Know what to ask for. Go to the police department and the court clerk's offices and get blank copies of all of the forms they keep on file. That way you will know what to ask for. What kind of data do police keep on every incident?
Be fair. Do you cover crime with equal interest in all areas of your community or does it seem that you cover crime in lower-income neighborhoods while ignoring crime on other areas?
Follow-up. Stations are aggressive in covering arrests but not nearly as aggressive in following up on the outcome of the case. Cover acquittals and dropped charges with the same prominence as you do the arrests.
